We recently hosted our first work experience student — to say it was an experience would be an understatement!
Normally, we would say that we are too small an organisation to be able to host work experience properly, but when a family member reached out and asked for us a favour, we were keen to say yes. Work experience is such a valuable time for young students — if done right, it can help them to understand what their working lives will look like in the future, and perhaps even give them an insight into whether or not they are as interested in their chosen career path as they think they are. We wanted to help provide that support for the person in question, as they mean a great deal to us.
The Prep Work
What we hadn’t appreciated when we said yes was the pressure that comes from taking on responsibility for someone’s work experience. We were very keen to make a good impression on our student, and give them as much of a varied insight as we could into the world of running a small business. That in itself is a lot to process as a small business, without factoring in all the planning, paperwork and communication that needs to happen before the placement has even started.
The build-up to the student actually joining us for work experience lasted about a month. We received letters and emails from the school asking for proof of employer’s liability insurance and a mini job description of the tasks that the student would be expected to complete while with us, as well as making sure that health and safety was satisfactorily covered.
We spent several hours planning a breadth of tasks to showcase all of the skills required to run a successful business, including financial understanding, workload planning, documentation creation, smooth-running team meetings, and more. The inherent focus on trying to keep the balance between interesting work and informative work was a challenge, especially given that our audience was a 14-year-old who probably hasn’t spent much time considering what a workplace feels like — but we think we did a decent job with our agenda for the fortnight. We made sure to put together as many tasks as possible that would provide a physical output at the end, so that the student was able to take a portfolio of work back with them at the end of their placement.
The Reality of Hosting
When our student arrived, we had yet another learning curve — we hadn’t appreciated just how much time that person would need our support for. We had budgeted several hours of support in our weekly sprints for the task, but it still wasn’t enough.
We hadn’t considered just how young 14 years old really is when it comes to independent working and the confidence to try new things. Our student was game for everything we asked of them, but naturally could only take themselves so far without our input — we had underestimated that because we are so used to working with (luckily for us) very responsible and self-driven individuals. We rarely managed to estimate how long a task would take for the student, meaning we spent a fair amount of time pivoting our plans to suit what was happening in the moment — a real live demonstration of Agile working for them!
The Outcome
Thankfully, the placement went well (or at least we think it did!). The student left us with a load of knowledge that they didn’t have when they came to us and a portfolio of work that they had created from scratch.
We were given a refresher in the patience and adjustments in approach that are sometimes necessary to find a successful outcome, as well as the positive feeling of knowing that we’d helped (in a very small way) part of the next generation of the workforce find their feet in the world of work with a bit more confidence.
For confirmation, here are a few quotes from their end of placement report:
“Throughout this placement I have developed my IT skills, mostly programming, my understanding of how to effectively market a product and how to manage finances.”
“My experience on this placement has been very positive, I have enjoyed almost everything.”
Would We Recommend It?
If you’re considering whether or not work experience is right for your business, we can recommend it — but you really have to give yourself over to it and do it properly for it to feel worthwhile.
If you’ve hosted a work experience placement in the past, we’d love to hear how it went for you.
