Returner Programme Partnership

Business for Good + Good for Business

Are you looking to access and support the largely untapped pool of highly-qualified, diverse and experienced returner talent?

We partner with employers across sectors to provide end-to-end support with designing, promoting and delivering a best practice returner programme, tailored to your organisation. From our extensive experience, we can maximise the likelihood that the programme is a success for both the returners and the business.

A returner programme may be one or a combination of the following:

  • A returnship programme, a higher level paid professional internship with support, specifically for returning professionals
  • Supported Hiring, bringing returning professionals directly into permanent roles with support
  • A retraining programme developed for returners, with suitable support
  • See our Returner Programme Dictionary for an outline of the different types of returner programme

Consulting: Returner Consultancy

  • We provide our partner employers with end-to-end support in terms of designing, recruiting and supporting return to work programmes and other initiatives to access the returner talent pool, on a cohort or rolling basis 
  • Taking learnings from our extensive experience, and using our Returner Programme Toolkit and Guides, we will work with you to to design a best practice and cost-effective returner initiative that attracts and supports experienced professionals on career break and that is tailored to your needs, structure, culture and commercial objectives, while also providing a positive participant experience.

Coaching and Training: Returners Coaching Programme, Interviewer and Line Manager Briefing Sessions

  • We will deliver for you our proven, insight-led four-stage Career Returners Coaching Programme, specifically tailored for returning professionals, to offer support at each stage of the transition process. Our specialised expertise in coaching career returners enables us to address the practical and psychological challenges facing professionals returning to work after a multi-year break. This support facilitates a more rapid re-integration into the corporate environment, increases the contribution and the satisfaction of the returner and maximises the likelihood of a successful permanent hire. 
  • We run interactive briefing sessions to support your managers and business leaders:
    • Interviewer Briefing Session to enable recruiters and hiring managers to get the best out of returners in the interview process, including managing potential unconscious bias against women returners
    • Line Manager Briefing Sessions to enable managers to effectively support returning professionals through the return to work transition and to integrate them into their teams.

Connecting: Access to Career Returners

  • Through our Career Returners Community, we provide access the hard-to-reach high-calibre segment of professionals on an extended career break: a largely untapped group of highly-qualified, experienced and motivated people, mostly female. We have a subscribed network of nearly 10,000 career returners and our website acts as a central portal for return-to-work information. We also reach returners through our media presence and our extensive social media network.
  • We regularly co-host Returner Insight Events with our employer partners, either in-person or virtually. These provide a mix of engagement, information, support and networking opportunities.
tideway
"I believe that working with [Career] Returners is the most effective and efficient way to run a returner programme. They have the expertise, the networks and the knowledge and provide a specialised and independent source of support to HR and to the participant group. After 30 years in HR, I have extensive experience but not of supporting people back to work after long career breaks. [Career] Returners made this process easy for us and were a major factor in the success of the returnship. I would not run another programme without them."
Head of HR
Tideway
O2
“At O2 we are always looking for new ways to attract talent and specifically female talent in STEM. [Career] Returners provided us with a one stop shop of well qualified candidates and professional support to launch the first of our programmes. The team at [Career] Returners supported us every step of the way, from supporting with the design of our recruitment process, helping to identify the candidates to shaping the programme and training. With a focussed and consultancy approach Women Returners were willing to tailor to suit the company and the requirements of the O2 programme. Following the success of the programme we sponsored the Women Returners Conference which was a massive success and again showed the amazing talent looking to return to the workplace.”
Diversity and Inclusion Manager
O2