Kickstart Case Study - Dillan Thoms

At the H1 Healthcare Group, we believe there are multiple pathways to success and we want to ensure we offer as many people as possible the opportunity to explore these. That’s why over the last year we are proud to have made a pledge to the Young Person’s Guarantee, a commitment to provide opportunities for all 16-24 year olds in Scotland through jobs, apprenticeships, further and higher education, training programmes and volunteering. This is part of our wider commitment to widening access to the care sector across the UK by providing pathways into permanent employment with us.

H1 Healthcare Group has managed this partly through the UK Government backed Kickstart programme – offering young people the chance to explore a career in the care industry, both in frontline roles as well as business support roles. Each candidate receives 6 months of paid placement, training and development with a dedicated Kickstart consultant to ensure every Kickstart superstar has the guidance and support they need.

We’ve been blown away by the talent and professionalism we’ve seen coming through the Kickstart programme, so much so that some candidates have already been offered full time jobs within the company! Dillan Thoms is a great example – originally joining us in a business support role, Dillan has now joined the Learning & Skills team full time as our eLearning Content Designer. He is our internal lead on the creation and updating of our digital learning content, supporting our Learning Management System, Qintil.

We sat down with Dillan and asked him a couple of questions about what brought him to H1 Healthcare Group and how he’s found the whole experience.

Before H1

What were you doing before H1? (working / volunteering / benefits)

I was on Benefits with universal credit for about a year which I couldn’t help. I was constantly looking for work, but nobody wanted to take me on or give me a chance which over a long period of time made me upset.

How did you feel about life?

I wasn’t exactly in the greatest of moods the entire time which made it worse to feel unemployed meaning the longer I was the worse I felt.

What were your ambitions?

My main idea was to look for a job, but I decided it taking that long to get one that I would try University which I got into first time. Boosting myself with that news I continued to look for jobs until university.

During

How did you hear about H1 job?

I heard about the job from my Universal credit agent which would send me job advertisements to get me closer to getting one. Which I applied for.

How was the recruitment process?

The requirement process was weird to me; definitely different as it was all online as I am a person from England not going into places to do interviews was extremely new to me, once I got the understanding of it online It was really easy to follow and understand what was going on.

What did you learn?

An awful lot I took a complete turn on what I thought I would be doing and went into a different direction in what I would be doing professionally.

How did you feel during training?

Training was extremely well built which helped me and everyone I had started with I do believe but it being online was still a little new to me.

After

What’s the plans for the future?

I will be looking towards furthering the work I have begun here with maybe some work towards a degree within the work I have been doing recently.

Would you recommend H1 to your peers?

I would 100% recommend it to my peers as it’s what has helped me become who I am now. Which is always a good thing.

Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us Dillan – we are all thrilled that you’re part of the H1 Family!

Dillan is just another example of many Kickstart superstars we’ve had join us recently, and with the next wave of Kickstart candidates starting their placements, we can’t wait to see what else the future holds with such an exciting programme!