In Your Shoes - Jordan Russell

Jordan is the Operations Manager for Street League Dundee, opening the site in January of this year. He has vast experience of employability and recruitment and his previous 2 employers were also Chamber members Hillcrest and Insights.

Street League operates in 14 regions across the UK with sport for employment programmes running in 36 local communities. Their 10-12 week long programmes support unemployed 16-24 year olds to learn the key skills, and gain the necessary qualifications and work experience to move into a sustainable job or further training.

HOME FIXTURES THIS WEEK

After a manic few weeks including our annual UK staff conference in Stirling, 2 days of meetings in Edinburgh, a management away day in Glencoe (my 1st ever ‘hill’ walk) and various visits to our Scottish HQ in Paisley – today marks the start of a week in Dundee!

I arrived early to record some actions for the Football Academy staff and for the Fitness Academy team as we balance moving our recently completed participants into positive destinations including jobs, with recruiting eligible 16-24-year olds for our next academies.

I’m then straight into a 9am call with our Scottish MD and our Head of Contracts to discuss a potential new funding stream, followed by 1-1’s with my sport staff and a meeting with a participant to discuss a vacancy I have with a local employer.

My day ends on a call with our Finance Director to run through June’s management accounts.

MEETINGS AND MAKING MEETINGS

Today begins with a team buzz meeting to discuss the day’s most vital tasks; with both academy teams having our weekly taster sessions this afternoon where we invite anyone aged 16-24 and not currently in education or employment to come along and participate in sporting activity for free, as well as getting the chance to talk with staff. We always welcome partners and stakeholders to attend too and these events are always fun!

I then head along to a meeting with DWP to discuss our current services and employability provision in Dundee, and our informal discussion continues the positive and collaborative relationship we have begun since Street League arrived in the city in January. I have a few calls with employers arranged and set up some meetings for next week, and some for when I return from holiday.

FITNESS FOCUSED (PARTLY) FUN

Today started with HIIT workout before heading into work (Ibiza-bound in 1 week so I’m trying to be zoned!) and then an open team discussion around how recruitment is going for Monday’s courses starting.

I have been training our new admin Modern Apprentice Regan on a range of tasks and today we worked on being innovative with our social media channels for Dundee, petty cash and invoicing with accompanying actions then I’m back to contacting stakeholders and employers to arrange meetings as I continue to grow our network across the city and beyond. Having decided not to go to watch the football tonight after all of my recent travel exertions, I arranged one of my pm meetings at Costa – always nice… Onto a great catch-up with SDS and briefly back to the office in sunshine after torrential rain earlier (Scottish summer!) then off to a game of 5’s.

STATS AND ANALYSIS

I start my day with a candidate meeting at the Hilton Doubletree, to capture some of the individuals’ details and discuss a couple of vacancies I currently have with local employers. I enjoy the lovely drive along Riverside in to the office to pick-up the ongoing training on, and updating of our internal database as I look to continue to create solid foundations in terms of our contract and data compliance and making sure that we are working smart and recording the hard work and various conversations and meetings we are having.

At Street League we try to practice what we preach, and having an office directly above a gym is very handy…so I squeeze a quick gym visit into my lunch break then back to the office to carry out some admin and reports for HQ.

HOME DUGOUT

As fast paced and busy as Street League is; there is plenty of autonomy and flexibility and I arrange to work from home today due to childcare requirements. I maintain regular contact with my staff via email and calling them and part of my Friday’s are spent completing some weekly internal communication and statistic templates then sent to the wider business so that everyone knows what’s going in across all of Street League’s UK regions. Open communication lines, collaborative approach to targets and process and awareness of progress and what’s going on nationally is important for us as an organization.

Update calls with my team at the end of the day confirm that we have around 25 young people starting on our Football and Fitness courses on Monday – my week ends with the placing an order for the participant Nike kit the young people receive once on our academies.