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Modern work experience · Insights from the Edge

• 0:08
  Speaker 3: You're listening to a new podcast from the Edge Foundation.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: This series is designed to be heard in short bursts, over coffee or a commute.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: We'll bring together experts in policy, research and practice.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: We'll explore how education and the world of work are developing for young people and education providers.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: We'll be asking how that world will give young people across the UK the knowledge and skills they need to flourish in their future life and work.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Insights from the Edge.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: In this episode, we are marking the Careers and Enterprise Company's Employer Pledge Week.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: And how can we encourage employers, including SMEs, to offer work experience placements for young people?
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I'm Olly Newton, Executive Director at Edge, and I've got two great guests with me.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I've got John Yarham, who heads up the Careers and Enterprise Company, and Chris Mayne from ElectTech Innovation Cluster, which is a group of electronic and electrical engineering SMEs based in Lancashire, and most importantly, a partner of our Apprenticeships Work campaign.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Morning, John, morning, Chris.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: John, the CEC has been working with government to champion modern work experience, and I absolutely loved chairing that webinar and event with you a few months ago on exactly this topic.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: And I know you're trying to get every young person in England access to 10 days of meaningful workplace experiences during their secondary education.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit about the employer pledge.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: What does that mean and why is it important?
• 1:37
  Speaker: I mean, modern work experience is about moving from a single kind of block placement concept that I I guess many of uh your listeners will remember from their own experiences, thinking about it in a more ambitious way to move to a progressive, meaningful, high-quality experiences that help every young person to build the skills, the confidence, and to inform their career choices.
• 2:02
  Speaker: So this is about reimagining the whole concept is about reimagining work experience and going further.
• 2:08
  Speaker: It's an ambitious kind of programme.
• 2:10
  Speaker: So it's not just about access or volume, it's about ensuring that experiences are relevant, progressive, and impactful for young people, for all young people.
• 2:19
  Speaker: So that that's the kind of overall ambition.
• 2:22
  Speaker: And the pledge to come back to your question is about celebrating employers, educators, and partners who've already pledged their commitment to that concept, to the idea of work experience being really impactful, and have taken that commitment into meaningful action.
• 2:41
  Speaker: So we've had this week about 50 partners, uh, including organizations like EY Foundation, Medical Schools Council, Talent Foundry, many, many more who are pledging their support to that concept.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: That's fantastic, John.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I think we've all seen the kind of amazing difference that a really good work experience placement, whether that's you know, whatever length that might be, can have for young people, really kind of seeing the relevance of what they're doing in education and connecting it to their future.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Um but yeah, absolutely, getting more placements is is what it's all about and really good quality ones.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Chris, obviously, as an employer, what's your experience been of taking on work experience placements?
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: We take on a number of work experience um students through the year as a business teleplant forceburg and as a cluster across the different groups, and it's been very, very successful.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: It's very difficult to try to showcase what actually an SME and a technology company offers in terms of work within a business through careers talks and um career spares, advice, those types of conversations.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: So the best way to do it is through these work experience opportunities where they get a real taste of all the different aspects that go into a business, all the different career opportunities and the different journeys that uh people can take.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: I know from personal experience, when I was on my work experience, it was very forced down one route.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: I went to a very large accountancy firm, and it was in that accountancy firm I suddenly saw the IT team and what they were doing with tech.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: That's what piqued my interest into technology, and then what led me on to a degree, and I took it from there.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: So we have taken that approach into our business where we try to give that flavor for any student that comes in so they can see all the different options to them.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: But also as a business, engaging in that work experience process for our team members is very rewarding as well.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: And it's uh we have a very engaged team.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: It's great to give back in that way and play that long game of the local talent pool and developing and seeing the talent coming through in the future.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: And you've obviously got a very personal connection to this, Chris, which is great.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I think that often drives a lot of like really good placements that you know you had a good experience yourself, you want to give that back.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Um, and I love what you said there about the kind of benefits it brings to your team members as well.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: So, John, when you're when you're talking and when your teams are talking to employers, obviously there can be some some challenges, some kind of worries about work experience.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: What are some of the things that you kind of reassure employers about?
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: How do you kind of get them over the line, help them to offer their first work experience placement?
• 5:14
  Speaker: Great listening to Chris talking about the drive that he has and and his business has around around work experience.
• 5:21
  Speaker: I think I think there's help that can be provided to overcome some of the challenges or perceived challenges that exist.
• 5:27
  Speaker: So clear guidance, we have you know 44 careers covering every part of England that are there to provide support to the employers within their patch and connect them into this program.
• 5:38
  Speaker: I I think they all uh make a difference and make participation easier.
• 5:43
  Speaker: Just going back to the kind of model that we are uh really working hard to make to create scale across across England, it is a more flexible approach.
• 5:52
  Speaker: So it isn't burdening an employer to taking the the kind of concept of a two-week work experience single placement and thinking how how on earth does that fit within you know my organisation, particularly for SMEs, it can be incredibly challenging to do that in a meaningful way.
• 6:09
  Speaker: So the con concept of building up uh a range of different experiences over time as a student sort of progresses in terms of their interests and confidence gives more flexibility to employers.
• 6:20
  Speaker: We think that's particularly important for SMEs.
• 6:22
  Speaker: The feedback from SMEs that have engaged in it has been really uh really positive, but it enables young people to really benefit as well.
• 6:29
  Speaker: We also have something that uh about 1,500 employees have undertaken so far called the employer standards, which is about a 20-minute sort of diagnostic.
• 6:39
  Speaker: It kind of gives an employer uh a checklist to kind of go through, and at the end of that, they can assess they they've got an assessment of what they are doing to contribute to early talent.
• 6:50
  Speaker: And that then signposts into the kinds of activities that they can undertake or the resources or support that they can access to um to move forward in in their journey as an employer working in this area.
• 7:01
  Speaker: So there's there's a lot of support out there.
• 7:03
  Speaker: I could talk for a long time, Molly, but I'll I'll leave it at that.
• 7:07
  Speaker: This kind of some some key headlines.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: That sounds absolutely fantastic.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: That that diagnostic tool sounds really, really helpful.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Um, and of course, as you mentioned there, you've got your kind of local careers hubs who I've had personal experience of the one where I live and they do a great job.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Are they the best kind of first port of call?
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: If SMEs are listening to this as part of our campaign, they're thinking, yeah, I want to get on board with offering work experience.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Um, should they contact their local careers hub as the kind of first port of call?
• 7:32
  Speaker: So every part of uh England, as I said, has a careers hub.
• 7:36
  Speaker: It's um it's a partnership of the local schools, colleges, training providers, and employers within the area.
• 7:44
  Speaker: So you can find out the details through the Careers and Enterprise Company's website.
• 7:49
  Speaker: You know, that's that's where you would find out who is your local careers hub and and we can make contact accordingly.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: That's wonderful, John.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I think those local careers hubs uh you know showcase a really important part of this, which is you know, we we all have a connection to our local area, um, and SMEs in particular are always keen to kind of help local young people, which is fantastic.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: So I think tapping into that's really important.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Um and Chris, I know you've got a really interesting model here as well.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: So, as well as offering work experience yourself, as you mentioned, um, I think ElectTech members work with local schools and colleges uh in kind of a partnership-based approach, which I'm biased, but I think that's the kind of future.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: How does that kind of partnership aspect work?
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: When we started to engage with schools, uh, we went in very direct, we were quite bullish in contacting schools and saying, hey, look, we've got this opportunity to talk about potential careers opportunities for your students when they finish their uh school journey and potentially going to college, potentially going to university, how do we engage with them, how do we showcase what we do?
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: That led us then on to speaking to the careers hubs and looking at how do we do this in the most effective way and working with those career hubs.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: We've developed all sorts of sort of opportunities, whether it's at Careers Fairs, um some other businesses uh type and forwards where we bring schools into the business and um we taught them through different careers, and that's led on to different work experience opportunities and internships, continually spreading the word about those sorts of opportunities that exist within our businesses.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: And then once we started to get into that flow, it became it becomes a bit more proactive, and then uh there's this call every year of how many, how do we get these placements, how do we put these uh uh students into into positions within businesses, and it had it's had that sort of snowball effect and it's growing from there.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: But it's but it is working very, very closely with the careers hubs because then they can centralize and then they take some of that workload off the SMEs because ultimately, when we wanted to do this, we want to do it, and it the minimal effort to organise the easier it becomes.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: It's just about removing those barriers for businesses.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: And something that was talked about just before with John as well, and I was mentioning about the work experience opportunities we do.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: We all know how difficult running a business is, um, and how uh a work experience opportunity could be perceived as being a bit of a distraction, but then again, there are various different techniques that can be put into place to remove that distraction, such as pre-organised projects that students can work on.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: There's an organisation called Tech Lancaster, which works very, very closely with the ElectTech members, and some of the ElectTech members are involved in creating this Tech Lancaster electronics boot camp skills development programme.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: And we work very closely with them and they provide kits.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: So even just having someone in the business working on a project that may not be particularly in line with the business, but is on the same topic of what the business is working through, and they're just getting hands-on with electronics and they're doing it in the environment of the workplace, can have uh huge benefits, we found for efficiency of providing the work experience, but also the opportunity for the student to learn how to operate within the business itself.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: We work very closely with uh career subs, with the colleges, with the boot camps, and it's all about that sort of ecosystem of trying to continually spread the opportunities and make sure everyone's aware of what there is within the local region.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Love that point, Chris.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: And and you've both mentioned this really important point, I think, that work experience isn't just a one-off, this is part of a broader series of experiences of work, opportunities to connect young people's kind of school or college work to the real world.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Um, and that's that's the way that this can kind of be most powerful.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: So I want to do a little bit of myth busting.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: You've already tackled one there, Chris, which often comes up in this discussion, which is you know, this is going to be a drain on my business.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: And actually, as you say, if if with the right support, with the right tools, it can be a really positive uh thing, both maybe delivering a real project that gives some insight, but also, and we found this as well, um, particularly for more junior members of staff, getting to experience line managing someone or uh you know can be really powerful as well.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Um so that's one myth down already.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: But um, John, Chris, I wanted to ask you each, you know, what what else do you hear that kind of can be a barrier and how do you overcome that?
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, we hear things about insurance, safeguarding, like what comes up in those conversations with your career hubs, John, and how do you tackle that?
• 12:16
  Speaker: Is is those kind of quite practical issues at times, particularly for employees that haven't engaged in work experience before.
• 12:22
  Speaker: And that's where uh we and the career subs across the country are uh determined to to I mean there's all already a plethora of resources out there to guide employers through some of those questions and and perceived challenges.
• 12:37
  Speaker: We want to continue to update that and continue to to expand the reach of those uh of that information again through the the CC, the Careers and Enterprise Company's web own website, but also through the careers hubs that I mentioned earlier.
• 12:51
  Speaker: Two other sort of examples that I would just quickly cite, Ollie.
• 12:55
  Speaker: One is is the role that some larger companies are starting to really play in working with their supply chains as well.
• 13:03
  Speaker: We've seen uh KPMG as an is an example of that, that have worked on a modern work experience program with some of their clients.
• 13:11
  Speaker: They've brought their clients in to kind of give a very rounded approach towards work experience, and and that's been incredibly successful.
• 13:20
  Speaker: There are a range of other uh large companies that are doing that with with their supply chains or with their partner organisations.
• 13:25
  Speaker: So that's one example.
• 13:27
  Speaker: And then another is on the on the teacher side of things as well.
• 13:31
  Speaker: Our view is that we need to make the barriers between education and and and employment, you know, remove those and and make that sort of a whole arrangement for us.
• 13:40
  Speaker: And that's where we've really adopted the Edge Foundation's approach, long-standing approach to teaching uh encounters, you know, actually bringing uh teachers out into uh industry as well.
• 13:52
  Speaker: So kind of another challenge that we hear a lot of is that employers you know contact education and and don't get anywhere.
• 13:59
  Speaker: Again, about breaking down some of those barriers, it's not just the sort of the uh perceived health and safety regulations.
• 14:05
  Speaker: Sometimes there's more cultural barriers.
• 14:07
  Speaker: So breaking that down comes through in my mind, having more teachers experience more uh employers as well.
• 14:14
  Speaker: And it's not just the students, it's also part of creating a culture that in it that fosters work experience to really uh uh flourish uh in in the longer term.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: And yeah, the the more connections the better, basically.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: And we we did a webinar fairly recently about those teacher encounters, so we'll that's available on our website as well.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: If people want to find out more about that, and Christopher, you when you're talking to your peers, are there any other kind of myths that come up that you can help to kind of uh calm them down about around work experience?
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: John, you articulated uh a key point very, very well about the culture and those connections and bringing about the awareness and uh making making it easy, I think, is the fundamental barrier that everyone faces from whether it's a teacher understanding or and careers advisor understanding which business to go to, and from a business being able to get access to who they want to speak to very, very quickly and easily, just knocking down those barriers is key.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: But what we do as a cluster of businesses is also share best practice where we're constantly learning from each other of what works, what benefits have we seen.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: And to your point uh before about the hidden benefits that this generates, yes, it's very easy to focus on what the benefits or the work experience young person that's coming into the business, but actually the business itself, someone coming into line management and they're getting some experience of managing in that short period of time, and just being in an environment talking to somebody about the business can actually generate good thought and reflection and ideas in itself.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: So there's these sort of hidden benefits in having those conversations and sharing that best practice.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: And we're fortunate when we set up this cluster, we've got a great group of companies that like to share what works, what doesn't work, what benefits have they seen.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: In that sort of environment, it's a good way to break through some of these perceived barriers and also identify some new opportunities as well.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's wonderful, Chris.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I we definitely experienced that.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I love kind of um seeing the team kind of explaining what they do to a group of young people, and then you can really see them glowing with pride because you don't often get that chance to kind of step back and think, oh, you know, what we're actually making a real difference here.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: So getting an opportunity to talk to some of the people who matter to us, I guess, our end customers, and then being like, oh, you actually do a really important job.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: That really you can see them kind of swelling with pride, which is lovely.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Now, we we firmly believe that kind of work experience and broader experiences of employment are kind of important for all young people, but um obviously there's a big priority at the moment from government and elsewhere on young people who are not in education, employment, or training.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Um, and this is definitely not an area where we have a silver bullet, but it's it's surely an area where this could help.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: So, John, I know your team's been doing quite a lot of work thinking about addressing this issue of NEET recently.
• 16:48
  Speaker: You're right, Ollie.
• 16:48
  Speaker: Yeah, I think the starting point is there is no single silver bullet for this, but it's it we are clear and we have got a lot of evidence now to show that high quality quality careers education, including work experience, makes a difference.
• 17:03
  Speaker: Prevention is better than cure, and and it's part of a broader prevention effort that feels the confidence and the sense of direction amongst young people early.
• 17:14
  Speaker: I really want to increase the amount of career-related learning that happens in primary schools in addressing stereotypes.
• 17:20
  Speaker: Yeah, we're talking about that level of starting learning.
• 17:23
  Speaker: The work experience itself uh we know makes a difference.
• 17:27
  Speaker: In and you know, just listening to Chris in terms of his opening kind of remarks about how it unlocked his eyes to a whole new uh sector or or area of work that he then pursued, is kind of you hear that so often in terms of the experience that young people can have.
• 17:43
  Speaker: The challenge that we face nationally at the moment is whilst the amount of uh work experience and careers education has significantly increased over the last 10 years or so, there are still uh equity gaps.
• 17:58
  Speaker: So those young people that need the greatest levels of support generally receive about the same level of support as as those that perhaps would be going on, regardless of how uh how strong their careers education is.
• 18:11
  Speaker: So, I mean uh it there's an equity gap that it still exists in the in the country, and and that's one that we are particularly exercising by.
• 18:18
  Speaker: That's why we have uh embedded a tool within our digital platform that all of the careers leaders across the country and schools and colleges uh use called Compass.
• 18:29
  Speaker: We've got a tool in there that prioritizes for them quite visually the young people that are most at risk of becoming leader when they leave their institution.
• 18:38
  Speaker: And it's it really acts as a prompt for them to think have we given those students that require that extra boost and in terms of their experiences and exposure to employees in particular, have we given them every chance possible to make a successful transition?
• 18:55
  Speaker: Have we given them that rich range of experiences?
• 18:57
  Speaker: For me, the next few years looks like an increasing amount of work experience, increased quality, but also increased targeting as well.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Um, we're coming to the end of our time together, so I wanted to just ask each of you for kind of a final thought, maybe for SMEs who are either listening in or who people are working with.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Um, what would you say to them to try and help them get over that barrier and offer their first kind of work experience placement?
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: The main thing is that it's that untapped potential, and the best way to find that untapped potential is to start at the entry level through workplace, uh work experience and work placements.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've got some superb stories in our business of people that have gone through work experience, then gone on to do college, and then applied for jobs later in in the company.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: So seeing the bigger picture from the long term and that these work experiences will generate those benefits whenever periods of growth come for the business and we're looking to recruit.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: We know we've got a local talent pool that is building and aligned to our business.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: So there is a bit of the playing the long game with with that talent pool and the importance of that.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Really, it's just engaging with those career hubs who will provide the support, will make it easier and and start start that journey off and look at it uh strategically how that builds.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Chris.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Uh John, last word from you.
• 20:18
  Speaker: I would just say engage with your careers hub, your your local careers hub.
• 20:22
  Speaker: You can find out the details through the CEC's website uh and and work with them to make a difference.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I think you know we're we're very clear, you know, work experience can be hugely powerful.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: It has that opportunity to help the business too, which I think is so important.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: It's not just a kind of um you know a gift, it's something that can work really well in both directions.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Um I think kind of key clear messages there, kind of don't believe the myths if you're an SME, uh, and get in touch with your local careers hub for some support.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: So, Chris, John, huge thanks.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Uh, thank you for those of you who are listening, and we'll be back with a new episode very soon.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: This podcast was produced by the Edge Foundation.