Supporting the frontline staff of the future: lessons from ReAct

The Restart prime providers are sponsoring the ERSA conference in November 2025. In the conference run up, the ReAct partnership is releasing a series of briefing papers highlighting key research from the collaboration and how the insights can inform solutions to Get Britain Working.

Recruiting, retaining and developing a workforce of advisers with the necessary combination of skills to support Restart participants has been a cornerstone to the programme's success.

The ReAct Partnership conducted research in 2024 called Maximising Adviser Impact; supporting workforce development, which examined the workforce development of Restart employment advisers through three key areas:

• Understanding and articulating the skills needed to be a successful adviser.
• Identifying best practices in supporting the recruitment, retention and progression of advisers.
• Understanding the role of line managers in development and retention of advisers.

Plans under Get Britain Working to help individuals who have been out of employment for longer periods re-engage with the workforce represent an important shift in approach which will affect the skills needed to be a successful adviser. Contract holders will need to consider how the upcoming expansion of the support framework for participants, and the interplay of public services and employers, will also impact on the relationship building skills needed for the adviser role. Alongside Get Britain Working, other changes are affecting staff skills and experience such as the rapid development of AI within the workplace. Defining and articulating the combination of adviser skills needed will be a key factor in preparing for the future.

This briefing paper looks at how the insights from ReAct research can inform the development of the employment support workforce of the future to enable the Get Britain Working ambition in practice.

The ReAct Partnership is an industry-led, active collaboration to support a continuous improvement community in the Restart programme through action research, shared and iterative learning, and the development of applied, evidence-based resources. The Partnership is co-funded by the eight ‘prime providers’ for the Restart programme — FedCap Employment, AKG, G4S, Ingeus, Maximus, Reed, Seetec and Serco — and is being managed by the Institute of Employment Studies (IES), working alongside the Institute for Employability Professionals (IEP) and the Employment Related Services Association (ERSA).