The Employers Module on Navigate (Training Session)

This training session covers the Employers module on Navigate, showing staff how to build and maintain the college's employer database, manage compliance, and find new employers directly from Companies House..

What this session covers

• Logging into the staff site and finding the Employers module
• Searching for an employer before adding one, to avoid duplicates
• Creating a new employer record
• Adding and archiving contacts against an employer
• Managing compliance, ELI and health and safety expiry dates
• Using the employer module panels to monitor compliance and status at a glance
• Using the employer search tool to find new employers via Companies House

Logging in

1. Open the Navigate staff site.
2. Click Login using Microsoft or Login using Google depending on which platform your college uses.
3. Open the Employers module on the left. The Quick links button at the top is also used briefly.

Searching for and adding an employer

The Search for an employer and Add an employer buttons sit together deliberately so you always search before adding.

1. Click Search for an employer and search in every spelling variety you can think of (for example McDonald's with and without the apostrophe, with a space, or spelled differently) to avoid creating duplicates.
2. If the employer does not already exist, click Add an employer.
3. In the Employer details section, search again as prompted, then enter the employer name.
4. Add the address details (main address, town, city, county) where you have them; only the postcode is compulsory.
5. Set the business type and the status (target, active or inactive).
6. Click Save at the top of the screen. After saving, the options to add notes, interactions and documents appear, the audit trail begins building, and the map updates with the postcode so you can measure travel distance from the college or a student's home.

Adding and archiving contacts

1. Click Add contact and enter the contact details. Repeat to add more than one contact against the organisation.
2. To remove a contact who has left, click their name and choose Archive. Archived contacts are kept under Archive contacts and can be unarchived if needed.

Managing compliance, ELI and health and safety dates

A due diligence checklist can be sent to the employer, though not every college uses this method.

1. To send the checklist, create a placement against the employer; the placement provides a due diligence panel from which you send the checklist to the employer.
2. The employer receives the email, fills in the checklist and submits it back; it then sits in the audit trail of both the placement and the employer.
3. Read the returned form and note the compliance expiry date field.
4. Back on the employer record, fill in the compliance approval date (today, as you have just approved the form) and the compliance expiry date from the form.
5. Optionally complete the health and safety approval and expiry dates (useful for colleges that do physical on-site checks; these are not compulsory) and add compliance notes such as the ELI number.
6. Save. The employer is now compliant and the action is time-stamped in the audit trail.

Using the employer module panels

1. The top panel flags placements going live against non-compliant employers; click in to see which employers need compliance information gathered and marked.
2. A pie chart panel shows the compliance status (compliant versus not) so you can see at a glance where forms still need sending.
3. A further chart shows the overall status (active, inactive or target). Click into any section to see the employers within it.

Finding new employers with the employer search tool

1. Open the employer search tool at the top of the screen.
2. Enter a postcode and a radius (for example within 10 miles).
3. Search by business sector to drill down to the specific type of employer (for example real estate agencies), then run the search; Navigate interrogates Companies House and returns the matches.
4. Open an employer of interest to see its location on the map (measured from the college or student's home) and click View employer details for the contact and accounts information.
5. To add it to your records, click Add new employer records; all Companies House data drags through into a Navigate employer record, including a panel of accounts information and finance documents.

Summarised from the recorded training session.