Leadership pays when it comes to turning work experience into Work Inspiration

Alliance Boots, BT, Capgemini, Channel 4,  Eversheds, Geopost Lakehouse, McDonald’s are leading on shaping the business benefits.

A new approach to work experience is helping hundreds of employers inspire young people, and strengthen their businesses in the process, according to a study released today by Business in the Community and the City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development.

The positive benefits of well planned work experience for young people in education are proven and well documented. However, less well known are the unique business benefits of high quality work experience programmes.

The study was conducted by the City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development to examine the business impact of Work Inspiration.  When asked to rank the reasons why their organisations offer work experience participants’ response was:

• 1.  To develop recruitment pipelines
• 2.  For employee development and engagement
• 3.  To meet corporate social responsibility objectives
• 4.  Because of existing relationships with local schools and Education Business Partnerships

Asked about business impact from adopting a Work Inspiration approach, with leadership and link to business strategy, respondents ranked these same four most highly.  Business impact is primarily felt in terms of CSR.  During interviews conducted with participating companies, further business impacts were identified - increased employee engagement and retention, new business relationships, brand insights, contract wins and talent. These benefits were most substantial where business leaders were involved from the start, and where Education Business Partnerships helped link employers to local schools.

Commenting on the research, Sarah Gibb, Director of Skills & Workplace Learning said: “There has never been greater need to support, encourage and inspire our young people about the world of work. Work Inspiration is all about equipping young people with a meaningful first experience of work while boosting their employability skills.

“We know employers back our commitment as over 500 have signed up to the campaign since launch, offering 135,000 quality work experience placements to date.  But we can and should do more.  At a time when so many are unsure about what the future will hold we hope this report will give employers the practical tools and evidence of the benefit to their business and people of engaging with this vital work.”

Christine Hodgson, Chairman, Capgemini UK plc said: “We have been part of the Work inspiration campaign for two years now. What has blown us away is the tremendous impact on our people and business. Bringing our partners and clients together in a room with young people looking at a specific business issue can be extremely powerful way to catalyse fresh ideas. The young people get a first hand, holistic experience of how business works and our clients can access different ways of thinking that they would otherwise not come across. I would encourage other organisations to take on the learning from this report and get involved in this extremely rewarding activity.”

Chris Jones, Director-General and Chief Executive City & Guilds said: “At City & Guilds we experience firsthand the crossover between education and work, and that is why we were delighted to support this important study into Work Inspiration. Work experience is a vital experience for young people. We hope that employers will find this study as useful as we have and use it to inform and refresh their work experience programmes.”

To share the learning and encourage employers to transform their work experience programmes into Work Inspiration, the report includes a set of top tips, advice and case studies from employers including Boots, MacDonald’s, Channel 4 and Capgemini.

For the full study and to access the top tips and case studies please visit

http://www.bitc.org.uk/document.rm?id=13131

- ends -

For more information about the study, interviews with spokespeople or a copy of the report please contact Linda Considine on 0207 566 8794 or on 07714 411 539 or at linda.considine@bitc.org.uk

Notes to Editors

The following spokespeople are available:

Research - Chris Jones, Director-General and Chief Executive City & Guilds Business Benefits -  Christine Hodgson, Chairman Capgemini Work Experience -  Sarah Gibb, Director of Skills & Workplace Learning, BITC

Work Inspiration

Work Inspiration is a UK wide campaign lead by Business in the Community to help employers turn work experience into work inspiration.  By becoming a Work Inspiration employer, businesses of any size and any sector show their intent to rethink the quality and quantity of their offer to the benefit of both the young people and the employees who volunteer to host them during a work inspiration placement.   For further details www.workinspiration.com<http://www.workinspiration.com>.

Organisations who championed the campaign include:

Barclays, BT, Boots, CapGemini, City & Guilds, Chime, Eversheds, McDonalds, M&S and National Grid