Book this programme
- Call us: +44 (0) 1623 409 82
- Email us: info@futureproof-training.com
Overview
Our Early Careers programmes are fully customisable and designed to build the strongest foundation during the early stages of working life. Clients can ‘cherry pick’ a mix of personal development topics, essential business skills and IT modules that are totally tailored to reflect the business culture and core values. Incorporating other support initiatives mentioned in the route map on page two provides the perfect blend to add value to the programme.
Building your own early careers programme will mean
- You choose the most relevant training workshops / topics
- You choose the most appropriate measurement & evaluation methods
- You tell us what values, policies & procedures you would like to include
- You choose the best delivery format – face to face / virtual
- You select a programme duration and delivery schedule that works best for you operationally
- You will be assigned a Futureproof Programme Manager who will be on hand every step of the way to provide best practice guidance
Recommended cohort size
We can cater for all group sizes and would recommend cohorts of 10-12 delegates to maximise interaction and engagement.
Programme Content
Our Early Careers programmes are fully customisable and designed to build the strongest foundation during the early stages of working life. Clients can ‘cherry pick’ a mix of personal development topics, essential business skills and IT modules that are totally tailored to reflect the business culture and core values. Incorporating other support initiatives mentioned in the route map on page two provides the perfect blend to add value to the programme.
Personal Development & Communication
Topics to choose from:
- Developing Self-Awareness (0.5 day)
- Effective Communication Skills (0.5 day)
- Developing Your Personal Brand (0.5 day)
- Presenting with Confidence (1 day)
Personal Effectiveness & Organisation
Topics to choose from:
- Time, Task & Planning Skills (0.5 day)
- Problem Solving/Decision-Making Skills (0.5 day)
- Developing Personal Resilience (0.5 day)
- Looking after your Mental Health at Work (0.5 day)
Professional Business Skills
Topics to choose from:
- Essential Project Management (0.5 day)
- Business / Report Writing (0.5 day)
- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (0.5 day)
- Commercial & Finance Awareness (0.5 day)
Essential IT Skills
Topics to choose from:
- MS 365 – Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Outlook/Teams (0.5 day)
- Co-Pilot (0.5 day)
- Power BI (0.5 day)
The full suite of Microsoft applications at all levels is available.
Development Support to Compliment your Pathway
The development activities below are options that can be put in place during the delivery of the programme to enhance the delegate experience and encourage the application of new ways of working.
- Programme Launch
- Team Building Event
- Business Shadowing
- Buddy Systems
- Department Discovery Sessions
- Networking
- ‘Meet the Board Member’
- Social Development
- integrate into your business
Personal Development & Communication
Topics to choose from:
Developing Self-Awareness
- Identifying different personality preferences
- Recognising differences in personality
- Identifying your personality preferences
- Spotting personality strengths and weaknesses
- Increasing levels of self-awareness
- Why is it important in the workplace?
- How can it help when engaging with others?
- How can it help when working as part of a team?
- Review personal development objectives
- Identifying ‘real’ actions to put in place
Effective Communication Skills
- What is good communication?
- Identifying the barriers to good communication
- Using different communication methods
- Verbal / email / body language
- Understanding different personality preferences
- Adapting your communication style to maximise interaction with others
- Encouraging a two-way conversation
- Active listening / questioning techniques
- Communicating your message with clarity & confidence
- The use of voice / tone / pitch
- Using professional language

Developing Your Personal Brand
- What is Personal Impact?
- Conducting a personal SWOT analysis
- Personal Brand Audit
- Identifying strengths you can build on
- Recognise weaknesses that you need to address
- Gaining feedback from others
- Asking friends / colleagues to allow you to check the accuracy of your self-perception
- Considering you’re A, B, C to help build your brand
- Ambition
- Beliefs
- Competencies
- Who do you want to be?
- Develop a brand to influence the people important to achieving your goals
- Does this match how you want to come across?
Presenting with Confidence
- The characteristics of an effective presentation
- Identifying different presentation styles
- Planning, preparation & structure
- Setting clear objectives
- Keeping the needs of your audience in mind
- Performance goals – identify milestones required to meet an end goal
- Physical delivery & personal confidence
- Making the most of your voice
- Positive body language
- Handling nerves & anxiety
Personal Effectiveness & Organisation
Topics to choose from:
Time, Task & Planning Skills
- Why personal organisation & planning is important at work
- The importance of meeting deadlines
- Recognising your current ways of working
- Identifying how and where time is being wasted
- Prioritising your workload
- Urgent v’s Important
- Effective scheduling & diary management
- The do’s and don’ts of writing a task list
- Managing downtime, delays & interruptions
- Delegating tasks ~ learning to let go
- Setting clear objectives
- The importance of having personal goals / objectives
Problem Solving/Decision-Making Skills
- What problems do you currently face?
- Review of existing approaches to solving problems
- An introduction to different problem-solving models / techniques
- Being creative in the way in which you approach the problem
- Understanding left brain / right brain ways of thinking
- Challenging the norm
- Researching the problem to provide meaningful data
- Conducting meetings using “The 6 Thinking Hats”
- Using different decision-making strategies
- Avoiding procrastination & delays
Developing Personal Resilience
- The importance of personal well-being at work
- What is resilience?
- The difference between stress and pressure
- Knowing what happens to us when we are under pressure
- Recognising when your anxiety levels are heightened
- Physical, emotional and psychological signs of stress
- The characteristics of a resilient person
- Being flexible & adaptable / managing setbacks / change
- Developing personal levels of resilience
- Combating negative thoughts
- Being more objective under pressure
- What circumstances undermine resilience?
Looking after your Mental Health at Work
- What is mental ill health?
- The importance of personal well-being at work
- The difference between stress and pressure
- The scale of the issue and why it is important
- Why does it seem uncomfortable for us to talk about mental health ~ breaking the stigma!
- Understanding the common causes & symptoms
- What experiences have you witnessed?
- Identifying different mental health issues
- How to help avoid mental health issues arising
- Improve wellbeing / peer support / taking a break
- Making workplace adjustments
- Support & care for a colleague with a mental health issue
Professional Business Skills
Topics to choose from:
Essential Project Management
- Understanding the benefits of effective project management
- The key stages of project management
- Scope / Planning / Execution / Monitoring / Closure
- Setting clear project objectives / goals
- Feasibility research
- Agreeing success criteria
- Personal organisation, planning & prioritisation
- Assigning key roles & responsibilities
- Project execution
- Implementing a communication strategy
- Monitoring & evaluating progress
- Critical path analysis
Business / Report Writing
- Understanding the writing process
- Adopting a structured approach
- Separating planning & writing
- The importance of accuracy & objectivity
- Using language well
- Is your writing interesting?
- Use plain english
- Avoid distracting the reader with mistakes
- Ensuring your documents are reader-centric
- Identifying the most effective document structure
- Organising the key points & relevant facts
- Selecting the most appropriate visuals
- Writing a summary / conclusion
Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
- What is diversity and inclusion?
- The key legal principles which impact on diversity and inclusion in the workplace
- 2010 Equality Act
- Identifying the four main types of discrimination
- Why it makes business sense to embrace diversity and inclusion?
- Understanding unconscious bias
- Why everyone holds unconscious beliefs
- The difference between conscious & unconscious bias
- Learning how to adjust your patterns of thinking
- How to encourage the values and behaviours that foster an inclusive culture
- Identifying key behaviours required
- Employing an inclusive approach to all business activities
Commercial & Finance Awareness
- How effective finance management can benefit the business
- Understanding financial jargon & phrases
- Profit, cash flow & the balance sheet
- The importance of a healthy cash-flow position
- Understanding & managing business cost
- Variable & fixed costs
- Calculating break-even point
- Financial planning ~ forecasting & budgeting
Essential IT Skills
Topics to choose from:
An Introduction to MS 365
- What is Microsoft 365?
- Learn how to access the different applications
- Understand how to use tools to improve productivity
- Discover ways to collaborate and communicate with team members
Excel
- Excel Fundamentals
- Getting started with worksheets
- Editing a worksheet
- Formatting a worksheet
Word
- The fundamentals of Word
- Getting started with documents
- Working with & editing text
- Formatting paragraphs & characters
PowerPoint
- The fundamentals of PowerPoint
- Working with images and shapes
- Create a presentation and presenting a slideshow
Outlook
- The fundamentals of Outlook
- Receiving e-mails
Creating and sending e-mails - Additional features
MS Teams
- The fundamentals of MS Teams
- Messaging and chats
- Making audio and video calls
- Using settings and control notifications
Copilot
- The fundamentals of Copilot
- Working with Copilot in MS 365
Power BI
- The fundamentals of Power BI
- Working with data
- Working with reports and visualisation
- Sharing and Collaboration

To complement your development pathway, why not build in additional support. The development activities below can be put in place throughout the programme to enhance the delegate experience and maximise application.
Programme Launch
Building in a programme launch gives delegates the opportunity to meet the Futureproof Facilitator prior to starting the programme and can provide a further opportunity for key stakeholders and/or senior leaders to set the scene and add context as to why delegates are attending the programme. Together with a line manager briefing, a launch can kick a programme off in style.
Team Building Event
Futureproof has a wealth of experience delivering a
range of different team events that cater for both newly formed and established teams. We can work in a traditional classroom-based environment, hotel / external venue or use a purpose-built activity centre depending on your budget.
Our event activities are designed to cater for all. Typically, they would be described as non-strenuous, ‘crystal maze’ like challenges that require all members of the group to take a full and active role throughout.
Business Shadowing
Delegates are encouraged to seek out shadowing opportunities to increase their knowledge and awareness of other employees’ roles within the business. This is a very safe and supported way of learning and will help delegates gain knowledge, experience and confidence in several different workplace duties.
Buddy Systems & Networking
Buddy Groups are a great way of networking with colleagues to provide an invaluable support mechanism designed to discuss / share a range of work-related scenarios and experiences.
Department Discovery Sessions
Support the delegates further by facilitating meetings with department heads or colleagues from departments that they wouldn’t normally be asked to liaise or work with. This is a great way to broaden their awareness and understanding of what others do in the business.
‘Meet the Board Member’
Increase senior manager visibility and boost engagement with those at the early stages of their career at the same time by building this initiative into the development programme.
Social Development
– integrate into your business
We appreciate how difficult it can be for anyone embarking on a new career journey, but add in the social pressures that come with it, and you can see how daunting individuals may find it. Integrating your early careers into the social culture and nuances from the offset can help that transition.
Delegate Development Presentation
We evaluate the overall success of the programme and the ‘Return on Investment’ achieved. Delegates will be asked to individually talk through the new skills, knowledge and behaviours that they have applied as a result of attending the programme.
