An interesting article appeared in the FT on Monday, by a lady who was questioning the value of work placements for young people (“Why Work Experience Doesn’t Pay for Anyone Involved”, Lucy Kellaway, Financial Times, 23 January 2005).
The author seemed clear and confident about her disapproval of work experience for youngsters. She says “I suspect [work placement] teaches them more about photocopying and making tea than anything else…Why do people of 15 need to know about office life? Their working life is going to stretch on interminably until they are 65 or maybe even older, so there is time enough to find out what it is like inside an office.”
The article made me smile, but I have to say, whichever angle I looked at it, I can’t agree with her hypotheses. At Sewell Moorhouse, we take on occasional placement students from local schools. We’ve found the experience really valuable to the company, and I’m pretty confident it’s been beneficial to the students too.
Surely work placement enables young people still at school to put some of their learning into perspective. Granted, some placements are going to be better than others, and there’s no question that some companies will use the opportunity of a ‘dogsbody’ to get a few mindless tasks off the 3 year old ‘to do’ list. But the opportunity for pupils to experience the environment, culture and dynamics of a business environment is a phenomenal one in my book.
A positive placement will undoubtedly contribute to the future standards they achieve. What better opportunity to interactive with adults in a work environment, and get some hands-on experience of how their studies might be relevant.
A lot of schools have work placement coordinators who look to match work placements to students’ individual career aspirations. This is a great chance for them to test out their future career choices and apply their studies. In addition, well managed programmes will take students’ learning and feed it back into the classroom on their return to school. The work placement can act as a case study or focus for various subjects; students may be asked to write a written report, précising their placement, or to discuss it in foreign language lessons. These experiences can also give students real context for consideration in business studies and even social studies.
On the other side of the fence, if you’re an employer trying to avoid having to put some time in with the work placement student in your office because you’re too busy… think again. Many of these youngsters will have a lot to add. Take the time to sit down with them, find out about who they are, their personality, their aspirations. Get past any initial teenage shyness, and find out as much as you can. Inspire your student and let him or her inspire you. The chances are they can teach you something too!
For further information contact Cliff Sewell or Philip Hill at Sewell Moorhouse – an independent and specialised accounting and financial recruitment consultancy based in Sheffield, Doncaster and Leeds.
E: cliff.sewell@sewellm.co.uk or philip.hill@sewellm.co.uk
EXPERIENCE COUNTS