Employers work placement framework and best practice guidelines Workfinder
WHY OFFER A WORK PLACEMENT? It is well acknowledged that the UK is suffering from a skills gap and that the students at school today may not have the skills needed for the jobs of tomorrow. Founders4Schools aims to unleash the power of the business community into the classroom and the Workfinder app helps to improve students life chances by connecting them to business leaders. Research shows that job-related knowledge is more important than a degree to succeed in life, and a relevant internship is worth more to a student than a higher grade. The Top 10 Skills that will be needed by 2020 are skills from the work place rather than the classroom. Offering work placements will provide you and your employees the opportunity to share your knowledge and experience, coach and mentor young talent and see your company through the eyes of the future generation of employees. By supporting Founders4Schools, you will be bridging the skills gap and nurturing future talent. This guide will help you get started. 2
GETTING STARTED If there is one overarching principle to work placement success, it is that the more enthusiasm, energy and preparation you put into the placement, the better the student experience will be. This presentation is intended to assist employers by providing a framework and best practice guidelines to help you deliver a really great work placement experience for students. It is based on prior experience of running work placements for teenage students. Please treat it as a set of guidelines, rather than mandatory instructions. Adapt them to suit your company. The overview includes: things to do before you offer a placement guiding principles for the work placement a checklist of preparatory work to do before the placement a framework for the placement including objectives, what makes a high impact schedule, student research into your company and your staff, and a sample placement schedule suggestions for follow up after the work placement an appendix with some useful templates which you may wish to customise for your company 3
THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU OFFER A WORK PLACEMENT Before students come to your offices on a work placement, there are a few formal responsibilities to discharge. 1. Type of work: There are some restrictions on the type of work you can offer students. These rule out any activities that could be physically dangerous or which require specific skills. Mostly they are common sense. But you need to adhere to them in your programme. Follow the link to see the details. See LifeSkills - Business Guide to Work Experience, pages 12 and 13 2. Risks and Health & Safety: You will need to be mindful of any risks associated with the placement and with the Health and Safety guidelines that need to be adhered to. You are advised to revisit your company risk assessment and update it for student placements. You will also need to complete a short Health & Safety survey. It is not onerous. Follow the link below or adapt the template included in the Appendix. See Lifeskills - Business Guide to Work Experience, page 17 3. Insurance: There is a need to consider Employers Liability Insurance. You should contact your Insurer to discuss this. For a typical student work placement you may not need additional cover, but your Insurer will advise you on this. 4. Disclosure and Barring Service: In a small number of situations e.g. on a very remote placement, with a sole trader, for an extended period or with vulnerable students, a criminal records check may be required. In most situations it will not be. Standard guidance is that a single student should not be in a closed room with just one company employee. Either work in an open plan area, or in groups, or ensure the door is always open. Check the link below for your placement See Lifeskills - Business Guide to Work Experience, page 14 4
GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR STUDENT WORK PLACEMENTS 1. Be clear on who has responsibility for the work placement and the entire student experience 2. Prepare well 3. Be ambitious in what you offer and in what you ask 4. Strike the right balance for the student between a) Learning about the company, the industry, company roles b) Doing getting involved in the business of the company c) Developing soft skills, employability d) Delivering being responsible for specific outcomes A balanced work placement schedule in hours Specific outcomes, 7h Work placement activity, 12h Learning about company and industry, 5h Coaching and development, 5h 5. Keep the schedule lively and interactive to maintain focus and energy levels. Keep days relatively short e.g. 09:00-16:00 6. Engage students in meaningful work with agreed responsibilities and outcomes; not just sitting and watching 7. Identify specific tasks or initiatives, relevant to the priorities of your business, but also meaningful to teenagers. Give the student choice where possible 8. Coach and mentor on soft skills throughout the placement 9. Encourage staff to engage with the students, to share information about roles, career paths, passion for the job 10. Work within Health and Safety guidelines but don t use them as an excuse for restricting what the student does 11. Measure success against clear objectives and outputs 12. Develop a repeatable programme that can be enhanced and reused based on experience and feedback Learning about company and industry Work placement activity Coaching and development Project work 5
GETTING READY BEFORE THE WORK PLACEMENT STARTS 1. Agree who is responsible for the work placement and encourage good preparation 2. Outline the schedule for the week and identify who should be involved for different aspects of it. Spread the load if possible to broader the student experience. 3. Develop and/or assemble the content for specific sessions. Aim for consistency but avoid overlap across sessions 4. Notify the person/people the student will work with, so they can shape the tasks the student will do with them and define clear outcomes. Identify who will provide coaching. If there is a group of students, consider whether they work together as a team. 5. Schedule time in advance with the senior team for the final student presentations on the last day. 6. Sort out logistics meeting rooms, building access, desks, presentation facilities, any materials, catering and provide the students with: Directions and clear timings for the start and finish for each day Contact details, including a number for students to phone on the day if they are delayed or unable to attend Guidance relating to the expected dress code and clarification of any travel expense reimbursement and lunch provision REMEMBER: These are school-aged students between 16 and18 who may not know what to expect from a work placement. They may be anxious about meeting new people and nervous in an unfamiliar environment. Their communication skills and confidence may not be well developed and their understanding of work place etiquette will be limited. Guide and nurture them and their fresh insight and talent will amaze you! 6
OBJECTIVES AND KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS A clear set of objectives will give the work placement focus, make it easier to evaluate how successful it has been and will help the students get the most out of their time with your company A sample set of objectives might be to: a) Increase the level of knowledge and understanding of the student about your industry, your company and your workforce b) Give the student some real life experience of the sort of work you do and what it is like to work in your industry and for your company c) Challenge the student to think constructively about how your company and the teenage generation intersect and what that might mean for the future. Channel this through their delivery against specific tasks d) Provide soft skill coaching and development in areas like problem solving, communication skills, team working, networking, presentation skills to improve the student s overall employability A set of key performance indicators that measure progress against the objectives above will help you to measure the success of your work placement. a) An entry and exit survey can provide useful information on what the student has learned b) Observations from mentors, work experience leads and project coaches will identify enhanced skills, new areas of competence and increased knowledge c) Direct feedback from the students will identify which aspects of the work placement they found most valuable and rewarding and may point out things to change in the future. 7
HOSTING A HIGH IMPACT WORK EXPERIENCE PLACEMENT The schedule for your work placement is very important. A fulfilling work placement will offer students a lot more than just watching someone at work for a week. A good schedule should be varied, have pace and offer a diverse range of things for the students to do Offer a good balance of learning, doing, developing and delivering activities Learning about your industry, your company, what people at work with you do Doing engaging with some of your employees in meaningful work Developing coaching, mentoring and feedback to increase students employability Delivering challenge the students to complete some independent tasks on topics relevant to you and interesting to them Be prepared for the students to have limited awareness of your industry and your company, but expect them to be extremely interested to learn. Schedule time for independent online research and time with staff who can introduce all aspects of what your company does Broaden students awareness of all potential roles in your company. Discuss what you look for in a good employee and how your staff came to be in their roles. Encourage independent research but also offer direct contact where possible. Students will be particularly interested in employees who are recently out of school or university. If possible, involve employees in activities with the students e.g. discussion over lunch Collaboration and team work are very important work place skills. Think how you can include these in your work placement activities. 8
RESEARCHING THE COMPANY AND THE TEAM Provide guidance to the students in advance of the placement as to where they might get information about your company. Include online links. Some students will arrive well prepared, having done research into your company and staff before the placement. Others may not. Consider providing time for them to research your company and the team using online tools like LinkedIn. Challenge them to use this research to document a number of questions which they would like to have answered during the work placement. Get them to share their questions and compile answers during the placement. Revisit these at the end of the placement Suggest students keep a record of everyone they have met, what their role is and some noteworthy facts about them. Students will be fascinated by the career histories of your employees and how they came to be working for your company, from the more junior to the most senior. From the perspective of a teenager at school, it often seems a very complex and uncertain progression to the world of work, let alone to a senior position in a company. When students are introduced to new employees, encourage staff to share their background and their career story, and to think back to the choices they were making at that age and the questions they were asking. 9
SAMPLE PLACEMENT SCHEDULE: LARGE INSURER CASE STUDY Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday 09:00-10:00 10:00-11:00 11:00-12:00 Introductions Objectives and expectations Overview of the week Introductions to all key people Overview of the Insurance industry: Why do we need Insurance - customer value proposition The history of Insurance and the Lloyds market Different kinds of Insurance - Life & Pensions, General Insurance, Personal Lines, Commercial Lines More detailed understanding of business focus areas (Income related): Underwriting, distribution, actuarial, investment Work on specific work placement activity: Understand all aspects of underwriting a major commercial risk e.g. Wembley Arena Liability, property, business interruption, reputation, cyber More detailed understanding of additional business areas (Expense related): Claims Other areas - IT, Operations, Legal, HR Work on specific work placement activity: Claims adjudication case study involving disputed liability and legal intervention Work on specific work placement activity: Student spends time with IT, Operations, HR, Legal and/or returns to Underwriting, Distribution or Claims Finalise involvement on specific work placement activity Student writes up agreed outputs and prepares to discuss key observations Review against objectives and success criteria set at start of week Project work: Finalise project work, prepare presentation Rehearse, dry run to coach, feedback 12:00-13:00 LUNCH LUNCH LUNCH LUNCH LUNCH 13:00-14:00 14:00-15:00 15:00-16:00 Overview of the compancy: Some facts and figures Company background and current strategy How the company is structured - key people, main roles, organisation design Strengths, weakenesses, the competition Introduction to the specific work placement activity student will be involved in Outline of what they will do Explanation of why it is important Introduction to the people they will be working with Discussion of objectives and outcomes. Thinking about what makes a good employee Beginning of active work Work on specific work placement activity: Distribution - the role of the broker; who owns the customer? Introduction to running a project: - setting scope and deciding on approach - building a plan and assessing required resources - doing the development and reporting back Introduce students to potential projects Student starts to think about their project: - planning - deciding how they will go about it - thinking about what resources they need -doing some initial research Project work: Review project scope and approach Identify company resources who could help Soft skill coaching on communication and networking Project work: Engaged with identified company resources Complete project research Begin preparing project output and shaping presentation Presentation skills coaching Project work: Final preparation for project presentation Present project to audience of senior company staff Feedback discussion on project Exit survey and feedback discussion on work experience placement overall Compare expectations and objectives with what has been accomplished What worked well? What didn't? Close KEY Learning about company and industry Coaching and development Work placement activity Project work 10
AFTER THE PLACEMENT 1. Complete the survey about the work placement on WorkFinder 2. Thank all employees who have given their time to make the work placement a success and celebrate its success 3. Debrief across all employees who were involved in the student work placement What worked well, which aspects of the placement did the students like best and why? What should you do more of in future placements and what should we do less of? Is there any aspect you should eliminate or replace entirely? What new things could be introduced into the next placement? Are there specific improvements to be made to parts of the schedule that will be reused? How good were the logistics? How could they be improved? What did you learn about your company and your from the students? Can you put any of this into practice? What did staff learn about themselves from this experience? 4. Correct any errors, inaccuracies or omissions identified in materials during the placement 5. Make any updates following the debrief, or clearly document changes that will need to be made before any future programme 6. Save all materials so that they can be easily retrieved and reused by different staff in the future 11
TEMPLATES Having a set of templates which could be reused every time you host students on a work placement will give a professional image to your company and will add to the student experience. Examples of each of the templates below are included in this appendix, which you could customise for your student work placement. Ultimately you will be able to access them through WorkFinder. Health & Safety pre-placement assessment Letter of welcome from the CEO Certificate of attendance Sample entry/exit survey Student debrief For marketing purposes, consider putting the URL to Founders4Schools on your company website to encourage student interaction and to promote the corporate social responsibility aspects of your company. Likewise make it easy for students to link to your company from Founders4Schools. 12
HEALTH & SAFETY PRE-PLACEMENT ASSESSMENT Before any students come to your offices for a work placement, a Health & Safety assessment needs to be completed. It is not onerous. Here is a template you could use.
WELCOME LETTER AND CERTIFICATE These will help students feel welcome at the start of the placement and reinforce their accomplishment at the end 14
ENTRY/EXIT SURVEYS AND STUDENT DEBRIEF These exercises could give you powerful data to market your corporate social responsibility credentials Entry / Exit Poll How likely are you to consider a job in this industry? Very unlikely / Quite unlikely / Don t know / Quite likely / Very likely In a few sentences, give reasons for your response What is the image of this industry with people your age? What could this industry do to be a more appealing employment option 15