Email templates for internal stakeholder groups (existing relationships)

Introduction

This resource is for employer engagement staff. It can be used to contact internal colleagues and stakeholders who are likely to have existing relationships with local businesses. 

Getting employers to commit to offering industry placements is not easy. However, where employers already have a connection to your school or college, they will be more likely to engage and support initiatives your school or college is running. 

Use/adapt these email templates to contact internal stakeholders and collate a list of possible employers to follow up with.  

 

Guidance

Finding employers to offer industry placements for your students is everyone’s job at your school or college. Just like you wouldn’t expect the safeguarding team to be the only people who can report a safeguarding incident, you shouldn’t expect the employer engagement team to be the only people that bring forward employers to offer industry placement.

Using these email templates allows you to lean on others in your organisation to find employers that are more likely to offer high-quality industry placements. But there are a few things you should think about before sending them out… 

 

Think about further information first:

When you email internal stakeholders, it’s likely some will come back wanting to know more. You don’t want to bombard them with detail in an initial email, but you will need a short employer guide or webpage that explains the ways employers can engage with students (industry placements, taster sessions, setting projects, etc) before sending out these emails. 

 

Timing and order:

Firstly, consider the best time of year to send out each email to specific groups. For example, if you email all staff the first week back of a new academic year when everyone is busy trying to enrol learners, your email is unlikely to have the impact you want. 

Secondly, make sure you have the time to follow up on responses with employers put forward. If you send out emails saying that you’ll contact employers in a few weeks, but aren’t able to for another couple of months, you will have lost some of the good will from that employer before you’ve even spoken to them. 

Thirdly, you probably don’t want to send all the emails out at once. It’s a good idea to think about the order of engagement. For example, the senior leadership team are more likely to be able to put you in touch with the right people at large businesses than staff, alumni or parents. If you’re looking for one employer to facilitate placements for the whole cohort, you may want to email senior leaders first and follow up on their leads before moving on to governors and so on. 

 

Parents’ email:

The parents’ email purposely talks more generally about supporting the school or college, rather than specifically referencing industry placements. There is also no attachment to further information. 

This is to stop as much mix-up as possible from parents thinking you are emailing them about sourcing industry placements for their own son or daughter. Keep this email as broad as possible, then answer individual questions that come back to you. 

Email templates SLT.xlsx

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