Teaching and Learning > DISCOURSE

Entrepreneurial Consultancies

Author: Christopher Allen and Deirdre Burke

Journal Title: Discourse

ISSN: 2040-3674

ISSN-L: 1741-4164

Volume: 4

Number: 2

Start page: 151

End page: 172

Return to vol. 4 no. 2 index page

Introduction

Whilst running a stand at the Enterprisefest1 at the University of Wolverhampton we noted that many people rushed past our stand. Was this due to the bold Faith Literacy title to our display? Did people think we had another agenda and were there with an ulterior, possibly evangelical, motive? The experience was a timely reminder of the reception that applications from Religious Studies graduates may receive from employers who are not familiar with the method and content of Religious Studies. Perhaps more than any other Humanities or Social Science subject, applications from Religious Studies graduates may be pre-judged and discarded by employers due to their preconceptions of Religious Studies. Graduate destinations for Religious Studies look good on the surface (at Wolverhampton over 80% of RS graduates use their degree) but these figures mask the fact that the majority of graduates either go into teaching or research, and they actually find other avenues for graduate employment difficult to access.

This experience demonstrates the need for an exploration of ways to enhance employability amongst Religious Studies graduates. This project in entrepreneurship in RS provided an opportunity to develop work in the area of 'religion and the professions' by exploring the potential for consultancy work on religious issues in the workplace. We are not sure that these activities are strictly entrepreneurial, but would link them on the basis of broad definitions such as the European Union's Green paper on Entrepreneurship:

the mindset and process to create and develop economic activity by blending risk-taking, creativity and/or innovation with sound management, within a new or an existing organisation.

1. Background

1.1 The impact of employment legislation

A key issue underpinning any engagement of RS with employability and entrepreneurship is the context of support for diversity in employment itself. The protection afforded to ethnic minority communities in the UK by the Race Relations Act 1976, was on the grounds of the statutory definition of 'racial group'. 'Racial group' includes race, colour, nationality and national or ethnic origin as markers of race but excludes both religion and belief. Case law under the Race Relations Act extended the definition of 'racial group' in the early 1980s to include mono-ethnic religious groups, in particular the Jewish and Sikh communities, but this did not include multi-ethnic religious groups like Muslims and Christians.

It is therefore unlawful to discriminate against people of African and Caribbean, Asian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi origin, plus also Jews and Sikhs, but perfectly within the law to discriminate against someone on the basis of their being Buddhist or Rastafarian for example. This definition of 'racial group' was also adopted in civil anti-discrimination legislation introduced against racial hatred in the Public Order Act 1986. Here again a situation developed where mono-ethnic religious communities were protected from the incitement of hatred against them but not against those same, previously excluded multi-ethnic religious communities.

Despite the Labour Party's election manifesto commitment in 1997 to provide greater protection following the murder of Stephen Lawrence through two clauses in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, against aggravated harassment and violence, and criminal damage both motivated by racial hatred, religiously identified communities remained unprotected.

However, even with legislation things have begun to shift and at the European level, the Human Rights Act 1998 provided within the UK the first direct protection from religious discrimination outside Northern Ireland, giving individuals the 'right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion' as well as the right to, 'manifest one's religion or belief', albeit limited to acts of worship, teaching, practice and observance.

And despite seeking to address this anomaly in the law, the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill 2001 failed to afford protection against aggravated offences motivated by religious hatred. Consequently, for the time being at least, multi-ethnic religious groups, including Muslims and various Christian denominations (including the Anglican Church) remain unprotected against the incitement to religious hatred.

However, from 2 December 2003, the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations came into force and it became unlawful to discriminate against workers because of religion or similar belief. Applying to vocational training and all facets of employment, including recruitment, promotions, transfers, dismissals and training, these regulations make it unlawful on the grounds of religion or belief:

The need therefore to understand and increase our awareness of the religions and beliefs that exist in our very own society are such that proactive measures now need to be taken. Along the lines of cultural awareness training and equal opportunities programmes, a faith-based alternative has emerged.

In this project we investigated the veracity of the PRS Subject Centre Manager's statement concerning the impact such legislation will have for the HE sector:

Religious literacy will also be very useful in a whole range of business start-ups since such knowledge is likely to be increasingly useful in product design, assessing markets, and customer relations; and would come to be regarded as an important enterprise skill.2

The 2004 Queen's Speech provides additional emphasis on this area in extending legislation against religious discrimination to cover the provision of goods and services.3 These new measures attempt to ensure that protection against discrimination is extended to all religions and beliefs. In addition the Queen's Speech took forward the move towards a single equalities commission,4 the Commission for Human Rights and Equality. The remit for the commission covers race, disability, religion or belief, and sexual orientation. These regulations are likely to have a significant impact on the workplace and will raise new questions and concerns for employers that take them into previously uncharted areas. The project is a response to this situation in seeking to identify how Religious Studies students could utilise their knowledge, understanding and skills to engage with these questions and concerns.

1.2 Entrepreneurial Consultancies in Religious Studies

The project was based on collaboration between University staff and ribro (Religion in Britain Research Organisation). Ribro was set up by alumni, as a consultancy business to engage with religious issues within education and wider society, to support equal opportunity in developing a cohesive multi-faith society.

Simon Smith, Centre Manager of the Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies (PRS) contextualised the PRS bid for Entrepreneurial funding from the LTSN Generic Centre in 2003:

Recent Religious Discrimination legislation from the DTI has laid down new requirements for employers to develop awareness of the needs of individuals and communities from a variety of religious backgrounds. This in turn will create a demand for a new consultancy sector advising public and private organisations on the beliefs and practices of people of religion, as well as heightening further the employability of religious studies graduates.5

This partnership between ribro and the University of Wolverhampton builds on experiences of existing consultancy work to explore opportunities for graduates on short-term consultancies in the local region. Whilst entrepreneurship is essentially focused on setting up new businesses this project sees the benefit in terms of identifying religious knowledge and information as having an important place in today's workplace. It is unlikely to lead to graduates setting up businesses in this area but the project is enhancing the employability skills of those involved and raising the awareness of businesses to faith literacy. This may mean that faith literacy becomes a desirable or essential feature in the undergraduate curriculum to ensure that graduates are competitive in the job market. In addition the work experience gained may enable graduates to gain a placement on a graduate placement scheme.

1.3 Faith literacy

Faith Literacy is an ambiguous term and it is likely to be the case that even Religious Studies lecturers would seek clarification on its meaning. This project has drawn on the term due to the government's use of faith in referring to religions in policy documents. An example can be seen in the setting up of the Faith Communities Unit in the Home Office. Thus the term has currency in the burgeoning field of legislation against religious discrimination, particularly in the workplace.

The Alliance for a Media Literate America encourages the development of faith and media literate educators, whereby media literacy is applied in faith situations. This connotation of faith in terms of the user being religious, i.e. a faith literate person is one who knows, understands and belongs to a particular religion, is perhaps the way that most people will interpret the term. Our use, however, is very different and does not have any confessional connotations.

We define Faith literacy as the knowledge and skills gained by Religious Studies graduates as a result of their course of study which enable them to engage in informed debates about the relationship between aspects of religion and aspects of society.

A leaflet on Faith Literacy was produced to support the project and provide a reference point for the consultancies. This identifies how faith literacy consultancy can help an organisation and illustrates the forms that such consultancy might take.

The current climate recognises the importance of faith literacy in society generally and in employment sectors specifically. This recognition is important for Religious Studies as a discipline and to enhance the employability of Religious Studies students and graduates.

Thus the concept of 'faith literacy' has evolved. Faith literacy is about learning more about the world's major religions, about the adherents to those faith traditions, about their beliefs and practices, their sensitivities and sensibilities. Faith literacy is about developing an awareness of the important contribution that faith communities are already making in contemporary society, and the impact that the development of these communities and associated identities will have in shaping the future of British society, not only through the needs of such legislation, but also through such issues as community cohesion, equal opportunities, and social inclusion.

As regards employers, faith literacy is about developing the existing knowledge base of the diverse background of both staff and customers, about making organisations and businesses more efficient and productive by ensuring that nobody feels excluded or marginalized. Failing to acknowledge this can be hurtful to individuals and communities, and damaging to the relations between them: the relationships between businesses and customers, employers and employees. Being polite, but uninformed, is no longer enough. Fairness at work and good job performance go hand in hand, and tackling discrimination helps to attract, motivate and retain staff, as well as enhance an organization's reputation as an employer. Eliminating discrimination helps everyone to have an equal opportunity to develop themselves and their skills. It is not about everyone believing the same things as each other, or rejecting or restricting valid criticism, but about getting to know each other and respecting our differences. This is what faith literacy is all about.

Increasing the knowledge base of the religious background of both staff and customers thus aids productivity and efficiency through being able to embrace and utilise diversity and difference rather than encounter difficulty and dilemma. Faith literacy provides an understanding of different religions in order to overcome the obstacles of misunderstanding, mistruth and mistrust that diversity can bring to exist in society today, and is a timely evolution of similar cultural and diversity awareness training and consultancy schemes.

If you were an employer faith literacy would help you:

through such programmes as training for staff:

or by undertaking research into:

The Project

The project focused on students who graduated in June 2004, were currently looking for employment and who welcomed the opportunity to extend their employability through this project. Whilst the aim of the project was to develop entrepreneurial skills among undergraduates, the involvement of graduates in this first stage was beneficial for two reasons.

Firstly, the project was essentially an exploration to test the waters and see whether this approach to 'faith literacy' consultancies could be operated on a wider scale for undergraduate students. Graduates essentially acted as guinea pigs to test possibilities. They were aware that it was a ground breaking initiative and were happy with the way the project was set up, if they had been assessed they may have had reservations about trying something new out.

Secondly, the involvement of graduates, in the form of a partnership, was beneficial as they were not involved in an activity that staff were assessing, so they were not worried about marks. This meant we were likely to get more realistic feedback on the project. In addition the maturity of the graduates enabled them to contribute to the discussion on how to take the project forward and involve undergraduate students. The graduates had all achieved good honours degrees and were able to operate on a higher level that the level two students likely to be involved in future years. They had a greater depth and range of knowledge and understanding, a wider range of skills and more importantly a greater level of confidence in negotiating with employers.

In the project the graduates were able to build on the module Religion and the Professions in which they undertook a case study on the application of their religious knowledge to a particular occupational setting. In future years this is likely to be the place that consultancies take place.

The focus on current graduates for the placement consultancies provides a group who already have a wide range of competencies and will be able to provide feedback on the support that undergraduate students would need to undertake similar placements in the future.

The three graduates have been placed with local employers to report on an aspect of working practice that relates to religion. Graduates are able to draw upon their religious knowledge and understanding to research the specified area. The training program is intended to develop their skills further by providing an input on the consultancy sector and training on the development of report writing skills.

This project takes the process further by linking with entrepreneurial graduates, who will act as mentors, and exploring the potential for faith literacy consultancies in a more explicit manner. Thus, the partnership brings a combination of experienced academic input and recent graduate experiences of the world of work. The experience of peer mentoring is one that can be carried on in future years with graduates from the previous iteration acting as mentors for current students.

2.1 Peer mentoring

The fact that ribro staff are recent graduates from the same program of study who have attempted to apply their subject knowledge in the work of work means that many advantages of peer learning identified by Boud6 apply:

They have face the same challenges, in the same context, they talk to us in our own language, and we can ask them what may appear, in other situations, to be silly questions.

Perhaps one of the main benefits comes from the realisation that attitudes within the world of study about Religious Studies are not shared by outsiders. That businesses and other employers are likely to have preconceived notions about religion, which may lead to negativity and suspicion. In this instance the experiences of Chris Allen in his research on Islamophobia demonstrated how easily misconceptions can arise, and elaborated on the social impact that negative understanding can have for religious groups in our society.

From the perspective of ribro, the experience of peer mentoring is useful in that it allows us to gain further experience and ideas from similar, likeminded graduates who are already 'warm' to the issues of religious studies and religious diversity in society, adding to the already developing and emergent ideas that we as an organisation have.

It is a sharing process where the peer element is as useful and almost reciprocal for ribro too. The project and insight gained has also gone some way to proving to ribro that the need for such consultancies is most definitely evident in the workplace, and also beyond the business sector in other aspects of today's society too.

As regards the experience and advice given to the graduates themselves, it is useful for the failures and problems that either Chris Allen or ribro might have previously encountered are themselves avoided by the graduates during their consultancies. Such a process not only aids the learning process for the graduates themselves, but is also useful in providing some justification and discussion about how to avoid such problems and dilemmas, where the sharing of ideas and suggestions is an integral part both of the project and the peer mentoring relationship that need to develop if such a relationship and project are to be successful.

2.2 Training programme

The project team received a great deal of support in setting up the programme from a range of subject and entrepreneurial experts. The PRS Subject Centre, in initiating the project had recruited Julie Gallimore as an expert, to advise the team from her considerable experience in working with the HE Sector on the subject of entrepreneurship. Dr Brian Clements, Head of the Innovations Centre at the University of Wolverhampton, was an important link to wider university resources in this area. In addition advice was gained from the university's Equal Opportunities Officer, the Head of Personnel and the Head of Corporate Staff Development.

The program for Religious Studies Graduates provided an introduction to consultancy work generally, with illustrations drawn from the work of ribro, which demonstrated the relevancy of their subject knowledge and skills to the workplace. Practical issues around timing made it almost impossible to set dates for training events, as two of the graduates had part-time work commitments which varied from week to week. Thus the project team had to act as conduits and relay inputs from internal providers.

The focus of the initiative to develop entrepreneurial skills does necessitate a training or orientation programme. The graduates had a good grounding in work-based learning, as they had completed a module on Religion and the Professions, which explored professional applications for faith literacy. In this module they focused on a case study, wrote a report for the general public and presented their findings to an employer.

The next running of the Religions and the Professions module will have an inbuilt training programme, which will be developed in light of our experience on this project.

2.3 Consultancy reports

Input from staff in Personnel and Equal Opportunities helped the design for the report, illustrating how organizations meet legal obligations by developing policy documents. A clear specification was provided for the consultancy reports and support provided for graduates to develop appropriate report writing skills. The format for reports was designed to build in a research element but also to meet the needs of employers. Reports cover the following sections in approximately 5,000 words.

The issue: Clear specification of the topic under consideration and some indication of why the topic has been chosen by the placement provider, are they responding to local needs or legislation?

The content: Details of the placement provider, what kind of organisation, how many employees, ethnic and religious make-up, general ethos.

Research methods to be employed and findings: Justify the approach you take to the research and set out the main findings from internet, book and other research areas.

Recommendations: This section applies your findings to the research topic and makes a number of recommendations on the best way for the organisation to achieve their aims.

2.3.1. Description of reports:

One City, Many People: this report explored the innovative voluntary course in the Council's Equalities Training programme. The course was set up for employees who need an understanding of the religious and ethnic make-up of the city for face to face interaction with individuals or for policy making decisions. The course aims to:

"develop a deeper appreciation of the rich diversity in our city; take a closer look at our differences so that they are less threatening; celebrate diversity;
address some of the roots, such as stereotyping, that build walls and barriers;
consider steps we can all take to challenge racism;
develop ways of working that promote equality and celebrate diversity."

The course offers sessions on individual religions, often meeting at the place of worship, and themes that link religious traditions. We were involved in a session on Welcoming the stranger that focused on the needs of service departments to respond to the needs of refugees and asylum seekers in the city.

The research methodology used for this report was based on council documentation, evaluations by participants, attendance at sessions and wider research. This process enabled the report writer to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the initiative within the context of local council training programmes. The main finding was the innovative nature of the course, which was unique within the local area and could be presented as an exemplar to other councils.

Three recommendations were made to take the provision further. Firstly, for the course to become mainstream and integrated within equalities training, rather than a stand-alone offering. Secondly, the benefit of the course is limited by its voluntary nature, and in order for the full benefit of training to be gained systematic planning was required to identify the needs of service departments, and this should drive involvement rather than individual interest. Thirdly, practical initiatives were recommended to share good practice and provide access to necessary information.

Faith Trails: The starting points for this project linked to the 'One City Many People' training programme and the practical requirements for Religious Education. The Senior Council Official with responsibility for both areas wanted the city to follow the example of the Liverpool Walk of Faith. Wolverhampton offers great opportunity for the study of religion because of the huge diversity both culturally and religiously in such a small area. Field visits give an insight into religion as it is practiced and the difference between this and what is academically written. This leads into the topic of faith walks, as this is a form of field visit in which people can learn about the religious heritage in the city and visit buildings they might otherwise ignore.

The objectives of the project were to set up a faith walk within the city of Wolverhampton for use in both the 'One City, Many People' training scheme and in Religious Education. This includes links with SACRE and the religious studies curriculum in schools as well as using the walk as a distinctive guide to the city. Research on similar projects in other cities was used to make recommendations about the organization of the walk and possible formats and links with other schemes.

Two walks were set up, each including three different religious traditions, which could be undertaken in a two hour walking tour. There are quite a few mediums that can accommodate the faith walks. These include publishing a final booklet like the Liverpool example and having it available for council and educational sources. The booklet could also be used as a guide for tourists or the general public as a distinctive guide to the city. The walk can also be used as an Internet based venture. This Internet-based virtual tour provided a picture of the exterior of the building, a small location map and a short history of the building. This would be followed by a picture of the interior and a description of what goes on in each particular building. In this format it can be seen in full on the website and then printed in a basic format with only the directions and information about the buildings. This means that people can print off copies from the Internet and use them for individual or group visits. The walk might be attached to a variety of relevant websites like the Wolverhampton History and Heritage society, the Wolverhampton Inter Faith Group, or the University's Religions in Wolverhampton website. These examples show the widespread application of the faith walk as both a religious and historical guide of the city.

Prayer Room: this report looked at the provision of a prayer spaces for use by employees of the West Midlands Police in Wolverhampton an issue identified by the fact that some of the Force's employees see prayer as an important aspect of their everyday lives and because of the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003. To reinforce this, a recent poll undertaken by the Guardian newspaper showed that 88% of young British Muslims would like to see the typical workplace and working day accommodating the five daily prayers required in Islam. West Midlands Police believe that they will help their employees in both fulfilling and enriching their work experience to their potential, where equality at work and good job performance goes hand in hand. They felt that such proactive measures might help them to attract, motivate and maintain their staff and improve their reputation as an employer.

Being diverse in its methodology, the report focused referred to both books and internet sites, supplemented by visits to other prayer facilities in the local area including Wolverhampton Court, Wolverhampton Civic Centre and Birmingham Airport. In doing so, the report put forward a number of issues that were recurrent in the establishing of a multi-faith prayer space: the provision or non-provision of religious symbols; the provision of washing facilities which is required for some traditions; the issue of security, as a result of vandalism; access for the disabled; privacy and/or segregation; and lastly, the issue of budget and financial cost.

The report recommended that in order for the Force to provide appropriate facilities for their staff and understand their needs, they should begin to collect and collate data about the religious beliefs and requirements of their staff. Such a process would give staff confidence if it was made clear why and how such information was to be used and also that such data would be entirely voluntary ensuring the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998.

As a response to the issues raised beforehand, the report also recommended that on the establishment of a prayer space, that the space should be locked; that the proposed prayer room be extended or an alternative area is located; that religious symbols should be available to those who require them, possibly maintained in a series of cupboards for each faith; that washing facilities should be as close as possible to the proposed prayer room; and that consideration be given to gender concerns that exist in some religious traditions, with the contemplation of installing some form of temporary segregation, for example, a curtain or a screen.

2.4 Dissemination

Dissemination is an important feature of the project and will be undertaken in the following ways. Firstly, to raise awareness about the project. The production of leaflets and a poster has been crucial in this stage. Leaflets were sent out to employers and accompanied invites to the progress report session, and presentations of the project. This high profile led to two invitations to share our experiences; at the Burlington Group's seminar on Employability; and at the Association of Business Schools Undergraduate Forum.

Staff and graduates attended the Enterprisefest7 at the University of Wolverhampton which focused on enterprise and encouraged student attendees to explore ways to develop their enterprise skills. We hosted a stand in the exhibition and were able to explain the nature of our project to attendees.

Secondly, to present findings and engage in debate with the wider employability and academic community. Firstly at a progress report session, which had time built in both in the formal programme and informally over lunch to receive feedback from the wider subject team, employers and outsiders who were new to the project. Secondly, at major conferences, a paper was presented at the ESECT conference and an abstract submitted for the HEA conference.

The third major form of dissemination will take place through the PRS subject Centre. The project contract requires the team to produce this report which will be used by the LTSN to illustrate practical aspects of entrepreneurship within the discipline. We also hope to host a national conference to explore the general issues in such placements and for a presentation on the consultancy reports. This conference would invite local employers (Local Chamber of Commerce/Federation of Small Business/Local Strategic Partnership) and members of the Community Cohesion group as well as members of the Religious Studies HE community.

The final strategy for dissemination is to publish the consultancy reports, so that copies can be used to seed further consultancy placements by demonstrating the importance of faith literacy to employers.

Interim publication will take place on the Religions in Wolverhampton8 website, which provides information about religions in the city and is offered as a resource to students and researchers. The website has a section on employability9 and the consultancy reports from graduates will be added to demonstrate the value of faith literacy for public and private sector organizations.

Evaluation

This experience has shown that there is great potential for faith literacy placements locally. The survey of employers identified opportunities and in the project we have been able to demonstrate the contributions made to local employers.

One of the main achievements has been to identify problems in communications with employers. We have had to learn how to communicate where we are coming from, to employers who do not really understand the legislation, and just have vague notions of what it might involve. The provision of worked examples make it possible to use the exemplars to demonstrate the types of consultancy that could take place:

These projects will enable us to provide a framework and develop communication with employers. The benefits of each report are elaborated below:

One City, Many People: this report drew attention to the innovative nature of the Council's training programme, which the staff currently involved in the programme do not really appreciate. The report, by setting the programme within the wider setting of local council training provision provides evidence for those involved to show they are way ahead of the field and should be sharing experiences and expertise with other local authorities.

The report found the One City Many People training scheme to be a positive and innovative move towards providing staff with the tools they need to support a diverse community. This programme could be developed into a cross-city training package that any business or organisation in the city could draw.

If taken within teams or departments, it could be a one-day event with visits to local religious places of worship which could include a talk by a member of that religious group about the religion, the community the place of worship serves and perhaps something particularly relevant to that team or department's service area, this could be followed by a question and answer session. Taken alongside the findings and recommendations the report on Faith Trails, the two initiatives could be combined to provide a service that could be made available as a religious training tool for local schools and for other businesses or organisations.

Faith Walks: this report provides an educational justification for this approach to learning in the field. This project is an extension of activities that make up the One City, Many Peoples training programme, and the Wolverhampton Inter Faith Group Faith Footprints programme. The provision of worked examples of two faith trails has already led to an extension of consultancy for Business in the Community as part of their negotiated work for customer organizations. In addition the consultancy has been extended by English Heritage to allow for the faith trails to be up and running for heritage Open Days in September 2005.

The Prayer Room report provided an interesting insight into the way in which large employers are looking to implement the requirements of the new legislation. Whilst West Midlands Police were keen to be seen to be proactive with their initiatives, there would appear to be some preparatory work that had been so clearly overlooked, such as in not knowing who or how many—if indeed any —members of its staff either required the facility or would use it. In doing so, there appeared little evidence to suggest that such large employers have much knowledge or experience of such initiatives or requirements and so would seem to substantiate the need for continuing to develop such consultancies and in particular to further the remit of faith literacy. Nonetheless, the report did highlight a number of extremely relevant and pertinent issues that are recurrent in the establishment of multi-faith prayer spaces, from which other sources and organizations that are seeking to replicate such a scheme would be able to draw some very interesting and useful insight from in order to avoid the pitfalls and dilemmas that the report itself highlights. The report's recommendations therefore have a much broader, almost holistic relevance therefore in addition to the quite specific context and frames within which the report and the associated research was undertaken. The report therefore can be used as an exemplar in the establishment of similar initiatives and possibly have fewer restrictions than one might have suggested at the outset of the project.

Benefits

4.1 Staff: The role of staff in such developments is crucial and this approach has been very much a training programme for staff. We perhaps even more than students are sheltered from the pressures of the big world out there. Within Religious Studies most of our students enter teaching so our figures look good for further research or professional qualifications. But if students don't want to teach or do further research we are not able to provide specific guidance. Thus, this project has forced staff to explore the world of work and identify employers and Public Services where religious knowledge and understanding might have currency.

This has clearly led to building 'educator capability' in this area. Research on entrepreneurship and enterprise in higher education supported the work with graduates, and enabled staff to join the learning and teaching community through conference presentation and debate. The spin offs from this project are already starting to mount up through establishing new contacts and developing incidental ones. We have been able to develop links with employment related provision within the university. Outreach work with existing contacts from the Community Cohesion forum, the City Council and the Police, was the starting point for the project. However, a wide range of potential employers and Public Service providers are coming to light, and a database will be set up for future consultancy placements.

4.2 Graduates: The most immediate benefit has been for the graduates involved in the project. They have had the opportunity to be involved in important consultancy work for major employers in the local area. Graduates have reported an increased sense of self-worth from this appreciation of the value their subject knowledge holds for contemporary society. This opportunity to apply their knowledge and understanding of religions in the workplace has helped to identify new career aspirations, and the training programme has equipped them with new skills that enhance their employability. One graduate has a consultancy contract with English Heritage to develop the work on Faith Trails for the Heritage Open Days in September. Another graduate is negotiating with Business in the Community to set up a training programme for a national building society.

The feedback from graduates identified aspects of the process that were difficult and where they would expect undergraduate students to require additional support. Whilst they had developed their academic writing for essays and journals, report writing required a different set of skills. In particular they faced the challenge of writing for a non-academic audience; how to pitch the report, knowing the right bits to put in, and which bits to expand on.

Overall graduates found a wide range of benefits from the projects, which went further than the enhancement of their CVs. One summed this up as the "opportunity to develop real life skills, to communicate to a business audience rather than peers, which set researching and investigating on a different level, and required using my own initiative."

4.3 Local Employers: This section was added as an afterthought, but perhaps it should be the first benefit as this is the area that the consultancy initiative will have the most impact upon. The Council receiving two of the reports has over 12,000 employees who interact with a local population of 240,000, thus, action on the reports can have significant and widespread benefit within the local community.

Moving forwards

Julie Gallimore's survey of employers provided support for the way the project developed. Firstly, responses from employers showed an awareness of the impact that new legislation will have on recruitment, and policies concerning leave entitlements and facilities to be provided in the workplace. Secondly, employers recognized the need to extend their equalities training programs to develop an understanding of religious issues. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's survey in December 2004 found:

'Little awareness training on the new legislation had taken place and most organizations were not confident that their managers had the skills to cope with the issues arising under the regulations'10

Clearly the legislation is taking all of us into a new situation; employers now need to engage with religious issues and need materials to support this move into the unknown. Gallimore noted that Human Resources Managers recognised the impact of legislation but were not confident in developing their responses. The report identified the need for worked case studies, training manuals, faith guides and a range of e-learning materials.

Within Religious Studies we need to audit the curriculum to ensure that we suitably prepare students for working in a new climate, and ensure that they possess relevant religious knowledge and understanding for the needs of contemporary society. One way forward would be to undertake a curriculum audit, the Bioscience 'employability audit' could stimulate debate about the knowledge and skills that would best prepare students in the discipline for the future. In addition the NCGE report, Hannon 2004, stressed the need for the curriculum to have a "focus on experiential, practice-based, action learning modes of learning underpinned by sound concepts."

The recommendations from Hannon's 2004 NCGE report for bringing things forward highlight the main outcomes of this project:

Linking with alumni, in this instance for peer mentoring, but it is also clear that the project supported alumni in the development of their consultancy business.

Raising the profile of Religious Studies in the local community, with both religious groups and employers, so that we can play a vital role in training developments.

Links with employers make it possible to raise an awareness of faith literacy issues and thus 'incubate' projects. In addition links enable market research to be undertaken so that we are able to respond to employer needs.

The high profile approach taken with posters and leaflets to advertise the project has helped to raise awareness among current undergraduates, many who attended the progress report.

Bibliography

Endnotes

Return to vol. 4 no. 2 index page

 

This page was originally on the website of The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies. It was transfered here following the closure of the Subject Centre at the end of 2011.

 

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The British Association for the Study of Religions
The Religious Studies Project