AIBU to stop offering work experience?

[Itsallacademic]

Background: I work for a very large employer with many departments, my particular role involves specialised laboratories and equipment. For the past several years, I have offered work experience placements to 6th form students within my team (usually lasting a week or two). While this does require additional paperwork and specialised risk assessments, I felt it was worthwhile both to inspire the next generation and to contribute positively to the organisation’s wider profile.
Current situation: I now have a DD in Yr12 who is trying hard to secure summer work experience. Importantly, her subjects are not related to my area of work. DD's college regularly shares information about work experience opportunities, but due to our family’s income level/education level/postcode/etc, she is eligible for very few of the schemes. She has applied for everything she can but has not been successful so far.
So, I suggested that DD contact other teams and departments within my organisation assuming that there would be colleagues offering placements in the same way I have. However, every response so far has been negative - most say the organisation does not offer work experience at all, often citing H&S even for departments that are just office-based (obviously, as I work at the same employer, I know exactly what paperwork is required so I know this is not true).
My AIBU: This has left me wondering whether I have been overly generous all these years. Providing work experience for under-18s is time-consuming, comes with administrative burden and does require resources. I had always believed I was doing something worthwhile and contributing as a responsible member of the organisation. However, it seems that very few, if any, others are doing the same - basically they can't be bothered?
I have told DD that she is welcome to do her work experience in my team, even though it is not directly relevant to her studies (and perhaps it won't look so positive on her CV to have worked with her mum). But after this summer, I am seriously considering "closing shop" and declining any future requests from 6th form students. AIBU?

Yes, this is my thought. I can understand you wanting to stop doing goodwill things for your colleagues but why punish the students for their laziness?* *

My first instinct was "of course you shouldn't stop"

However YANBU

Schools and collages need to be realistic about the current climate. It's not fair to send children out to secure work experiences at a period in time when full grown graduates and adult job seekers can't secure even unpaid work experience after 100s, even thousands of applications and months of fruitless enquiries.

It's not fair on the kids, it does NOT give them the experience it gave us back in the day of learning how to present yourself when you could actually get something if you did everything right.

IMO schools should try to secure industry rotations, and if they cannot, don't send the kids out for what is now almost guaranteed rejection.

My youngest DD to do work experience through me pulling in favours in the end. After she did all the things right and didn't even get rejections or acknowledgements in return. So what did she learn from that eh Mr/Mrs School? That without nepotism there's no point? Your existence won't even be acknowledged?

I fully get the point of sending kids out to secure work experience for themselves in a NORMAL jobs market, but doing so at the moment is just CRUEL.

The system needs re-evaluating until things hopefully turn a corner.

Do you not have any contacts in other departments who you can ask yourself to facilitate your daughter's work experience? Especially if you know how the paperwork works so you can offer to guide them through that bit. Someone with a child a similar age who might be happy for you to return the favour? That's what DH and I did with our kids.

it’s actually not allowed to pay students for work experience (as officially they’re still on education time, not employed), so those employers were being had by cheeky students.

association of British insurers has clarified position on wexp (students are covered under ELI) , and insurers who say they can’t allow are choosing not to allow. https://www.abi.org.uk/products-and-issues/choosing-the-right-insurance/business-insurance/liability-insurance/employers-liability-insurance/work-experience-students/ Shame on them for making life difficult.

to make it easier to host …

if you’re hosting but short on time, then offering shorter hours - eg 10-4 (even 3) is fine. Most schools will not mind at all as long as majority of school hours covered, and it gives you a bit of flex to get stuff done at either end of the day.

Hosting for the whole week is amazing , as students can be nervous first couple of days and take time to settle , but even just offering three days is super generous and they’ll (should!) bite your hands off.

Huge thanks to everyone who gives up their time to help young people.

In case the chain of causation isn't clear, I'm not thinking of stopping because my colleagues aren't doing it, I'm thinking of stopping because the realisation that they aren't doing it (in the context of DD's difficulty) has caused me to lose goodwill, enthusiasm and energy - all of which are prerequisites for me to do this thing.

Oddly enough, telling me that I'm punishing people by losing my goodwill, enthusiasm and energy, isn't assisting in regaining said attributes.

What I am hoping will help is simply the perspective of time. Hopefully by next summer.

Only do it for people who value you. A friend recently asked me to arrange work experience for his son. It would have meant hours of work for me to develop a programme for 2 weeks. But given he hasn't been a great friend for a while, my heart really wasn't it so I said no.

I was going to say, I'd really have had to sit on my hands to restrain myself from responding to the office-working colleagues saying 'I've just been told there are H&S concerns about having WE placements, I'm really worried, I've been doing them for years and had no idea I was breaching company policy, please can you let me know what they are?'

Do you have any friends or colleagues you get on with in any other departments that would do you a favour by taking her on, even if they don't normally offer WE?

I appreciate it's good for your DD to make the initial enquiries on her own, but if she's not getting anywhere, if she's going to benefit from having a parent working there anyway you may as well take full advantage and pull some strings. Even if she's officially based in your department so you sort all the paperwork etc. but she sits with a few other people for half a day a week?

Surely the answer here isn’t to stop yourself but to raise it higher internally about the concept of offering work experience and making it a key offer of the organisation. If it’s such a big company HR or OD should be involved in organising and coordinating this.

I run a similar work experience which has been far too successful and I’ve now ended up with 14 teens coming in during July.

That said, I’ve evolved it to be a cross functional effort so the impact on me has become less each time. I do the paperwork and structure the week but many other teams offer their time to support. Maybe you could think about doing something like that to engage others but not have it be all on you.

In my organisation it’s very difficult to get them to do actual work, so it’s much more about a taste of work and helping them understand future career possibilities.

Oh, the students never actually do any actual work

”it seems to me that I'm stuck with being a kindly muggins for the rest of my career for absolutely no reciprocity.”

The problem is that there can’t be proper reciprocity when you are contributing into a pool and then hoping to take out from the same pool.

This kind of system often works better within social circles, even large and loose ones based for instance on membership of the same association (eg Rotary).

It would be so much easier if you could go directly to the people whose children you gave WE to. I’m really disappointed for your daughter.

I think there should be a national work experience scheme for 14-16 year olds rather than relying on parents and workplaces to talk amongst themselves to organise it, which only entrenches inequality.

35 years ago when I did it (so 1990/91), in the middle of a recession, the school gave us a big printout of a huge list of jobs and employers and we picked a top three or something and we were allocated one of them.

Why has this been allowed to go backwards? Particularly when youth unemployment and failure to launch is such an issue.

Have you offered work experience at your workplace?

I work for a big company, they certainly wouldn't do this. You would be opening the floodgates.

I understand how you feel but am so grateful to people like you who continue to make the effort.
My year 12 DS has been trying to secure a week's work experience for weeks now. He has managed to get one full day in an office and is going to make up the rest with virtual workshops.
I am proud of the effort he has made. He has emailed and phoned many places, and even during half term he put on a shirt and tie and visited local companies in person. The usual response is they don't offer it, try a bigger company.
My friend who owns a stone masonry business manages to provide work experience and apprenticeships, despite all the paperwork and risk assessments. I don't see why a solicitors or accountants office should have such difficulty.

Yeah that's true but it's not the world we live in.

I'm the past you could have asked that any parents who want their child to get work experience, offer work experience for someone else's child, but lots of people's jobs don't allow that sort of individual autonomy.

It's a bit like how the same employers who don't give references only confirmation of employment, are the same ones that demand 3 full references when recruiting.

There is no circular economy for these kinds of good deeds in modern life

Also the dbs thing / safeguarding , is another thing that some people like to get very het up about. But the reality is very few placements actually require dbs.

OP, it’s a bit outing for me, but I have been involved with Wexp for a really long time. If I could sprinkle just some of the positivity that we see in school after Wexp, you’d be really proud of what you’re doing. There’s always some kids who are a pita etc. but for some it’s the making of them and gives them so much confidence, just at that critical point. The year 10s really grow up, and it really helps year 12s with ucas decisions , apprenticeships etc. If only you could be a fly on the wall of one of our pshe review lessons, you’d get a huge boost !

Can you approach the colleagues yourself? That's what people do where I work. You can say that you can offer placements for work experience in return. It's harder to say no to a colleague.

@Itsallacademic have any of your colleagues in other departments' kids benefitted from you offering work experience? I ask, because I'd approach them directly to see if they'd return the favour. Or come up with a deal that they help your daughter this year and you'll help their child next year (or whenever, depending on age).

Sometimes sending out a blanket request yields little help as everyone thinks someone else will step up but no one does (diffusion of responsibility). Asking specific individuals might mean they say yes.

I'm sorry you/your daughter are in this position.

At least you have inadvertently benefited from your kindness to other students. You now have the systems in place to offer work experience to your daughter if she can't find something else. Also if she finds a placement and it's awful, she can relatively easily change to working with you. Obviously you didn't offer work experience for these reasons but your past good deeds now offer a safety net for your daughter that she wouldn't otherwise have.

I don't think OP needed the systems though. People arrange work experience for their family members all the time without these systems.

The company I work for only accepts work experience through HR, has a limited quota, it's a fixed program / time period which wouldn't like up with school work experience weeks, and they don't usually accept kids that aren't doing a related uni course.

I have no say over this, but on the very rare occasion that I've had the opportunity to have one shadow me, I've been more than happy to do so

I feel sorry for the poor kids that schools are LYING to when they tell them to put themselves out there and enquire at workplaces like mine.

Yanbu to be disappointed but it sounds like this has been rewarding for you and children so I wouldn’t stop that just because other departments are lazy.

she doenst have to say on her cv it was with hwe mum I did my work exp with my dad and I didn’t .

Not at all. They may prefer to have someone they know rather than the unknown. It’s worth a go.

Sorry if someone else has already suggested this but you’re in a large organisation which will presumably have its own PR team, keen to generate good news stories for the business? Assuming this is the case would it be worth having a cup of coffee with someone senior in that team and chatting through the issue, telling them the value you feel the placements you’ve hosted have created for the young people and how you could see that value being replicated across the business if other departments got involved? There’s been a lot in the press recently about young people not in work and the need for businesses to give a helping hand. It doesn’t feel like a story that’s going away.

can I also just reiterate that you sound like an excellent person and it would be a shame if you stopped although I very much understand your POV.