WORK experience expectations

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So management volunteered me to take a year 12 work experience student for a week. Never done this before.

I have thought about a small project that should be suitable rather than just hanging around. ( my DD who I say slightly older, did similar subjects so I think it’s ok)

What is considered good/bad/useful? How much time will I lose? What else should I think about?

It depends on what profession you are in?

Speak to the student too and ask what they are hoping to get from the experience. Are they there because they have to do something or because they have a genuine interest in pursuing career in that area?

Yes a project would be good. Something to keep them occupied so they don't need 'something to do next' all the time.

What industry is it?

I would expect their first morning to include a tour of the site/office/school to include main functions and toilets, where to get a drink, fire drill etc. plus any health & safety stuff. Then either a project or a day in different environments.

DD1 did her y12 WE out of town and stayed with my dad 250 miles away. She was at a large company that specialises in products such as shower gel, shampoo etc. She got to use various pieces of kit that later cropped up in A level Chemistry and observed different functions of the business, including an afternoon at the head office. She is currently studying for a science degree.

DD2 was at the local university. She did some practicals with 2nd year students after helping the lab technicians set them up. She observed various different parts of the faculty and wrote up some reports for them. She has a place at a different uni to study something very similar.

When we have WE students at school (music dept) we show them around. They observe different types of lessons (KS3/4/5) with the different teachers. They spend part of a day with the peri teacher of their own instrument/voice and help us with rehearsals/any trips. We normally ask them to take on a project which are things like cataloguing sheet music or CDs, organising photos, writing up reports for newsletters etc.

Thanks

Large IT organisation and she is veering towards IT / science

Sounds like it would be an idea to get her to meet up with people in different roles

simple data entry, no?

Checking numbers. Finding ways to make pretty graphs of things.

Compliance or contracts or governance meetings (can sit in).

When you are at school, it is likely you have a very limited notion of what different roles there are in the workplace, even if you have a fairly strong idea of what you think you want to do.
So i'd agree with Malbecfan in terms of the 'Induction' and then I think the best use of the young person's time would be to see / spend time in as many different departments and with as many different job roles as s practical. Let those staff know in advance so - where possible - they can try to think of an interesting bit of their role to show the young person, or even better, task that they can do.

My dd was lucky enough to do a week at a medical school and they sent her to a different department each day - really opened her eyes to what a lot of different careers there were within the field she was interested in, even areas she had not heard of before.

I host WE yr10s and organise placements across our firm.

Make sure someone has done a risk assessment. Any areas of the building they can't go to, equip they mustn't use, etc.

malbecfan has it spot on for the first day Definitely project rather than days spent just hearing what someone else does.

Why hasn’t the school asked for a risk assessment and an outline of what the pupil will be asked to do? Dreadful management from the school and your firm I’m sorry to say. You shouldn’t just make it up as you go along. Get a programme sorted out and make sure there is a risk assessment completed and all staff are on board with what is required - for your peace of mind and an effective leaning experience for the pupil.

The school has asked for , and been provided with, a risk assessment and outline.

Just looking for how to ensure the xepriance is most valuable, without making work for people ( becuase then it won’t happen)

But taking on a work experience young person is invariably work for the organisation. DH sees it as potential recruitment later down the line - not a chore. People actually enjoy having the young people in. So yes, effort does have to go in.

Schools are usually so desperate to find workplaces that will take on work experience pupils that as long as you can meet the basic risk assessment and h & s criteria they don;t reallyy tend to ask for nything else other than a brief outline of what the young person might be expected to do/observe.

Ds did his in a music shop and had a fantastic time. He served customers, used the till and spend an afternoon tuning the string instruments!

We;ve had work experience students at work and they have shadowed a service engineer, (repairing water heaters etc) or office based ones have done photocopying, simple data entry and helped to collate end of project operating manuals.

Both my dcs did work experience years ago now, in y10. One worked at a research and development location and was given some amazing tasks. All proper work, no making. Offer or photocopying. In fact, I've of his technical diagrams is still in use. The other was based in a much more practical setting and also really loved what he did.
It does annoy me when I hear about workplaces who only use these students to do photocopies and make coffee.

But it is proper work But when you work in an office there is photcopying to be done. ON the one occasion there was an important operations manual that had to be given out to a client at the end of a project. This entailed copying and putting into a display folder the relevenat info.

My ds did some work experience in the summer after year 11 - it was 3 weeks I think. He did some learning about the company/shadowing, spent sometime doing data entry and merging spreadsheets- a bit dull but a real job in that someone had to do it - it couldn’t be automated. He was also asked to produce a PowerPoint presentation on something to be shown to some committee. I think this was them just finding something for him to spend a couple of days on, but he did it so well they actually used it and we’re going to incorporate it into further training. He also got to take a copy away to show school what he had done.

Giving them a project will be easier for you but they won't get nearly as much out of the experience.

When I arranged work experience for my son (and when others have arranged it at the large company I work with), we found it's better to involve a few people. Call in some work favours and see if any of your colleagues in other teams could spend 1-2 hrs giving them a brief overview of what they do.

One of my ex-colleagues did this for me and my son ended up helping her with an Excel problem she had - I was glad for her help showing him what she did and she was glad for his expertise :)

Oh and check the Health & Safety policy and specific risk assessment for the work experience - I'm not sure that our policy would have covered sending our work experience people off to make the coffee !!

My DH sees it very much as showcasing the organisation and showing young people what their branch of civil and structural engineering in a mid size consultancy is all about. They don’t have office tasks for the work experience people. They work with the schools who send them possible engineers of the future so everyone benefits. Stuffing envelopes, making coffee and photocopying just isn’t any use at all. The key to this is getting the young person enthused about a career and your organisation, not boring them rigid!

Wheras we see it as showing ALL young people what it is like to be in a workplace.

All of the above tasks are tasks I routinely did when I started work here 17 years ago. Not everyone can be an "engineer of the future". Mundane office tasks are part of work life.

When my DD did work experience, they asked her to write an article for the in house magazine if she had any "free' time. I know she also attended a couple of in house training sessions whilst she was there.

The Managing Director left school himself at 14 and became an apprentice. He has always been committed to offering opportunities to employees from all educational backgrounds and abilities.

When DS did his week of work experience (Year 10) in my viewt the most valuable thing he learnt was what it was like to spend five days in an office, arriving on time and leaving, with, in his case, most of the people in the firm (architectual firm) still in the office busily working away. With the lanyards and the swipe in systems and the computers. This was a complete eye opener to him, and he was completely amazed to discover that DH and I thought a lot of aspects that were knew to him were completely normal. They did give him a useful project using something somewhat similar to photoshop, which was great, so he had a sense of being useful, but the may aspect one tends to forget is that a school environment is very different from a typical working environment, and it can be a real eye opener. In DS's case, it made him wonder whether he really wanted to spend two days discussing the location of a fire extinguisher.

I do some WE visits to various places checking up on students and often I really enjoy myself. One was to an architect practice where a y12 girl was able to use a CAD package to design ideas for a house extension. She then went to visit the client with the architect and was very excited when some of her designs were chosen. Another went to work with the local MP. A friend's son worked for a league 1 football club in their admin department. Dad was very excited to see articles written by his son on the club's website.

DD2 did her y11 one at the local dentist's surgery where we are registered. She observed him doing routine examinations then some more complex work and helped the nurses. She observed the hygienist one morning and the receptionist in the afternoon. One afternoon it was quiet as the dentist keeps slots for emergencies so she helped him plant some bulbs in the planters ready for the spring!

The next day, the receptionist had to nip out and the phone rang, so she answered it in her best business voice. It was the main dentist who was so impressed that he offered her a job as a relief receptionist in school holidays or weekends. As she had signed a patient confidentiality agreement, she is able to help out at fairly short notice and is now treated like royalty when she goes there. She makes a decent cup of tea, which I think is key preparation for any WE student.

All proper work, no making

This thread scares me. It's hard enough for kids to get any WE placement, never mind if employers think they must go to great lengths to make it a 'real' or 'proper' experience for them. Too high standards will lead to fewer places.

The thing being BubblesBuddy, not everyone who needs to do we, is an 'engineer of the future'.
In most work environments, those jobs that you consider to be too mundane for a school pupil do actually have to be done by someone.

I've had people come into school supposedly to "experience the work" a teacher and / or a TA does, and then they consider washing the paintpots and sharpening the pencils beneath them. Not sure who they think does these tasks every day..... elves at night perhaps ?
Plus schools should let the students know that staff are taking time away from their jobs, to offer the students these experiences - if there is something that the students to do, to help out or give their mentor 5mins back, then they should do so, at any opportunity. That is how workplaces work, IME.