Employer gets staff involved to help working parents with home-schooling 

With working parents juggling parenting, teaching and professional responsibilities, Guidant Global, has rolled out a one-of-a-kind education programme to support its employees and their children.

The Impellam Superstars home-schooling scheme has been run by the company since early January, with staff across the entire Impellam Group – which includes Guidant Global – offering their time to teach the children of their peers each week, giving parents a much-needed break.

As part of the programme, Guidant Global grouped children into relevant age categories, before developing a full teaching schedule, with four sessions available each week for every class. Topics have ranged from PE, languages and creative writing, to more entertaining sessions such as treasure hunts, Disney quizzes and even a game of Simon Says, run by CEO, Simon Blockley. To date, the programme has seen around 70 children access the variety of sessions.

Nicky Hale, Global Head of Talent Engagement at Guidant Global and driver of Impellam Superstars commented: “It’s been a tough time for us all lately, but for working parents it has been incredibly hard trying to juggle home-schooling and work. The feedback we had from our parents was that they just needed flexibility in their hours, which we of course ensured they had. But we didn’t feel that was enough. Our People Services and Senior Management teams came together to discuss what else we could do, and Impellam Superstars was born.”

Nicky added: “The mental well-being of our staff and their children is a priority in these tough times and we will continue to run this education programme for our working parents and their children as long as it is necessary.”