The Way Youth Zone
A unique, supportive environment for young people aged 8-19, and up to 25 for those with additional needs
The Way Youth Zone, located in the heart of Wolverhampton, provides a unique, supportive environment for young people aged 8-19, and up to 25 for those with additional needs. For just £5 membership per year, and 50p per visit, young people can engage in creative, active, and social activities that help them develop their potential. The Youth Zone is committed to empowering youth by offering a safe, inspiring space to build resilience, explore their interests, and gain valuable life skills.
Driven by a mission to make a positive impact on the Wolverhampton community, The Way Youth Zone relies on partnerships with local organisations to amplify its reach and effectiveness. The Youth Zone is open every evening after school, offering a safe place to go, fun activities to do, and trusted individuals to talk to. On Saturdays, the facility extends its offerings to the wider community with themed activities for families and young people of all ages and abilities.
51 Staff
www.thewayyouthzone.org
“Working with Ink has been a pleasure. The entire team is both friendly and professional, taking the time to understand our business and build strong relationships with our line managers. This has made the HR business partner relationship seamless. The support provided during the onboarding process was crucial to our successful transition from internal to external HR services. Ink guided us step by step, ensuring data accuracy and ongoing functionality. Recently, one of my team members remarked, ‘I can’t believe we’ve not had Ink before now.’ The positive impact Ink has had on our team is truly significant.”
— Paul Snape, Chief Executive Officer
The new CEO of The Way was a client of Ink’s in his previous role at another charity. On starting in his new role at The Way he was keen to bring Ink’s skill and specialist knowledge into the organisation to support and complement the work of his leadership and management teams.
We started working with The Way in the spring of 2024. We carried out an HR audit and prepared new template Contracts to fit the different categories of worker – from bank and sessional to salaried staff. We then onboarded the workforce to the HR online system, comprising both their individual files and shared documentation, together with standard reporting functionality (sickness, absence, holiday). Our team worked with The Way on a bespoke rota, time and attendance module within the system to enable The Way to have more automated scheduling capability for improved visibility and efficiency.
At the same time as we onboarded The Way to our HR Managed Services, our Payroll team configured our systems to accommodate two different payroll cycles with fairly complex year to date information. We had a tight deadline to ‘go live’, which we met through close collaboration between or teams (Payroll and HR) and the client.
We are now some months into our partnership with The Way and have established a back-office rhythm which means that the Charity can rely on us to fulfil HR and Payroll administration seamlessly and with minimal pull on their own resource time. We have freed them up to focus on the unique demands of running a successful inner city youth centre.
From an HR Business Partner perspective, the line managers at The Way know who to speak to at Ink whenever they are facing a particular challenge or whenever they need clarity in respect of policy, best practice, or procedure. We remain one step removed from the organisation and are therefore well-placed to provide impartial and pragmatic advice.
