Morgan Stanley supports Coach Core
A team from Morgan Stanley taking part in their Strategy Challenge have been supporting Coach Core to increase our effectiveness recruiting apprentices from under-represented groups
As part of its core value to ‘give back’, Morgan Stanley launched its first ever UK Strategy Challenge in 2014. This flagship pro bono program brings together the investment bank’s rising talent to help nonprofits solve strategic challenges. Coach Core was selected for the 2023 edition of the prestigious Challenge and worked with a team of Morgan Stanley employees drawn from across their London departments.
Coach Core set the Morgan Stanley team the challenge of helping us better attract, recruit, retain and empower those from marginalised or under-represented groups. Over an eight-week engagement, the Morgan Stanley team leveraged their expertise to provide customized analysis and implementable action plans, along with tools for future assessments and decision-making. The program culminated in a day-long event, during which teams presented their recommendations to senior firm leadership and a panel of nonprofit sector experts.
Although Coach Core and our Morgan Stanley team didn’t “win” the overall challenge, this was a hugely beneficial exercise that will have ripple effects in the way we work for years to come.
The process was an intensive one, with the Coach Core members involved meeting the Morgan Stanley team for several workshops as well as providing in depth data and reports for the Morgan Stanley team to analyse. We also arranged a site visit with the apprentices at our London employer The Ahoy Centre, so the Morgan Stanley team could get first hand answers to the apprentices view of the recruitment process.
Amy Fazackerley, Coach Core’s National Partnerships Manager reflects on the project:
“As a social mobility charity, we are committed to supporting young people facing exclusion, lack of opportunity or under-representation in the workforce. We wanted to challenge ourselves to ensure we were staying true to this ethos and were delighted to work with Morgan Stanley to understand how we could better attract, recruit, retain and empower those from marginalised or under-represented groups.
The project allowed us to apply a fresh perspective on our current approach to apprentice recruitment. The team generated a wealth of valuable research and insight to help inform our future direction and provided a range of ideas to help develop our work. This would not have been possible otherwise, due to the limited size and capacity of our team and we are truly grateful for the extensive time, knowledge and expertise provided by the Morgan Stanley team.
Recommendations included updating our branding and language, enhancing partnerships with key stakeholders and taking a tailored, targeted approach to the recruitment of certain demographics, with the view to adopting an overarching framework across other groups. We are excited to reflect further on the findings and action some of the recommendations in the coming months.”
