Is work experience the key to an enterprising UK?
July 21st, 2008 by PeterThe world is more enterprising than ever before, so is work experience preparing young people for this?
Consider the following:
-
The world of work is changing
-
Jobs for life are extinct…Portfolio working, changing careers, increased life expectancy and ageing population
-
Interest in entrepreneurship on the rise and lifestyle businesses are increasingly popular
-
The internet and technology, and globalisation are (arguably) creating a ‘flat world’, and reducing the costs to business start-up
(The NESTA project we’re involved with summarises all this better than i can - see the Future World of Work http://www.nesta.org.uk/future-world-of-work/))
2. So it follows that the nature of work-related learning should change too, right?
- Does the notion of two-weeks sitting in one place reflect the reality of work?
- If young people are involved with business in their spare-time and on the weekends shouldn’t this count as learning?
- Industries are more complex than ever before – every industry has a potential passion that aligns with the interests of young people. For instance, a young person might hate maths - but show them how the only route to being a footballer’s agent (and free tickets top games, and all the best gossip) is by being good with numbers - and get them trading with the players in the premiership.
3. So consider a different world…
- Work experience projects that use the talent of young people to result in real business innovation and real customer feedback from young people.
- Long-term mentoring and networking opportunities as additions to work experience and careers fairs.
- Young people’s insights and skills (e.g. with social media) being used to inform good business and corporate responsibility.
- Updates from Twitter during a placement that keep parents, schools, colleges and other interested parties engaged in the work experience as it happens.
That’s more like it right…?
Given that its work experience season - what are your views? What makes a placement enterprising? What makes work experience fun? Are you on one now?
Do you remember one you did at school - What stands out and is work actually anything like it…?
Thoughts on a postcard!
July 21st, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Freya joined the team for her work experience last week, we really enjoyed having her here and tried to make it as varied and interesting an experience as possible for her, as well as a useful insight for us - seeking her views on our campaigns and activities, and to develop a possible work experience programme going forward.
One of Freya’s special tasks was to write a blog post about her week, here’s what she had to say…
I’ve really enjoyed working at Make Your Mark this week. I felt instantly welcomed and comfortable with the team and the office. Throughout the week I was given a really varied range of activities to do, and tasks to complete. These included producing a map and key showing local amenities of the new area for the staff, helping with research for a South American trip, listening to meetings as well as individual people talk about their campaigns. I’ve felt like I’ve been really involved, and that I was working as part of a team. I also now have a much better understanding of the campaign, and it’s been really nice to work with people who express such ambition and drive in what they’re promoting. I intend to tell my school about Make Your Mark and hopefully introduce some of the competitions and campaigns to them. I’d also really love to eventually come back here to work again, and see how projects have progressed. Thank you to everyone at Make Your Mark for such a wonderful experience ! Definitely better than working in tesco.
July 21st, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Hey Peter,
This looks like a very interesting start.
Consider the following challenges/questions
1) Who pays? Now and in the future
No-one does anything unless they can see the value
2) Why would people engage with any strategy? Yours, mine or anyone else’s?
3) What’s in it for all the people involved?
4) Where does this or any experience lead?
5) What are they learning and why? Given that much of the skills taught now are for jobs that won’t exist when they enter the job market
7) What does sustainable look like?
9) Technology isn’t the answer; only part of the solution. Many genuinely hard to reach youngsters don’t have access to PC’s/internet
10) Knowledge is directly linked the ones relationship with learning, if that experience is damaged, no number of experiences will make a difference.
11) Before learning or engagement comes security, after that comes belief, then comes experience and repetition ; all have to be in a learning path that makes sense and must lead somewhere.
for starters…
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:51 am
Daniel’s questions are spot on - especially who benefits and how? Research we recently commissioned showed that relationships between employers and schools worked best when all aprties were clear about the benefits they got. For example, rural employers said that although they enjoyed helping schools and working with young people, they also benefited their business by raising their profile locally, networking with other employers and learning young people’s perspectives on their business projects and problems. If you want to know more, full research reports plus 25 case studies will be published on the NESTA website in August - or drop me a line (futureinnovators@nesta.org.uk).
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Oli Barrett has posted a reply to this post at his site. Read it - its good.
http://www.dailynetworker.co.uk/
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:22 am
We need to enable our young learners to move painlessly into the world of work where they are ready to take on the challenges of a short-term contract culture, ready for flexible working and constant, exciting change.
Traditional methods of employer engagement have had their day -there are fewer large businesses and less opportunities for young people to enjoy quality work experience that is relevant to them.
We are involved in delivering high-energy work experience enabling groups of learners to work on live projects established by real businesses. In order for these learners to understand the culture of work that they will experience we work with high numbers of self-employed young people and entrepreneurs. There are numerous benefits. They provide great role models, they get paid, they get input to their ideas from some amazing young learners and they develop new skills.
In addititon to the work experience our learners are also gaining useful skills-based qualifications.
At the end of a typical two-week programme our learners will have responded to a live project brief, will have met a number of young entrepreneurs from a variety of disciplines, they will have developed teamwork skills, have a grasp of enterprise and the changing world of work, will have gained learning and experience and had fun.
We have yet to find a school, a public sector partner, a local young entrepreneur or a learner for whom this does not work.
This is the future.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:40 pm
We need to create a mindset that work experience can be a win-win for employers and students. Employers should spend some time understanding the student’s skills/development areas and engineer the opportunity accordingly to ensure that the student works at their optimum.
At Enternships.com we’re trying to provide entrepreneurial work placement opportunities all-year round so that it’s not only summer holidays within which placements can take place (in the case of university students).
It’d be great to see more work places offering the chance for young people to develop entrepreneurial skills if we are to develop an entrepreneurial nation.
July 24th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Thanks all for your responses. I’m heartened to hear so many people that care about this.
So - the question is then - how do we get more of this happening?
The NESTA pilots are a great example of priming a bit of activity - but how could we encourage more systemic change?
July 25th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I’m a huge advocate for work placements and internships. I had a year long placemnt myself 3 years ago and set up RateMyPlacement.co.uk to raise the awareness of the benefits of work experience.
In the current climate it’s no longer good enough to have a 2:1, having the real life work experience is integral.
I think the way to ‘get more of this happening’ is to raise the awareness of the opportunities to students and raise the awareness earlier. Work placements provide students with the chance to develop their skills to allow them to become more enterprising, and especially so in SMEs. But are 2nd year student too old to be focusing on? Nesta mention 16-17 year olds are their focus, are they too old as well?