As employers many of us, big and small, are already committed to offering work experience to young people. But can we make it more relevant, meaningful and inspiring to both the young person and our business without increasing the burden on our staff?
The starting point is to host an internal conversation about Work Inspiration and make sure you invite those with an active interest in making the transition from school to work. So not just your HR and Education teams, but perhaps your recent graduates, apprentices and staff with teenage children.
Useful tools
In this section, you’ll find three key Insights to help inspire your colleagues to create a more effective work experience programme.
We suggest they are run together. Although they will work individually, it would be a shame not to use the work experience opportunity to take young people on a journey — the three Insights create a journey of possibility.
About the Insights
The three Insights have not been created to turn work experience into career guidance, nor do we suggest that employers could or should have the skills to counsel or advise on careers. They have been developed to connect the classroom to the world of work — to open conversations and suggest opportunities. As a result of the Insights we would hope that young people are inspired to return to their school and talk to teachers and career guidance professionals, and to research and ask questions relating to a world of work that you, through these Insights, will have made real.
The Insights are not prescriptive; they can be integrated into your existing programmes and adapted. They should be seen as a means simply to connect your world of work to young people on work placements.
Ultimately we want the experience you offer to have made the young person feel that the world of work is a fun place to be in, somewhere they could fit in, somewhere where people are friendly and supportive and, most importantly, that they are employable. Remember, these three Insights could be the first conversation that many will have ever had with someone in the world of work.