Helping young people

It’s easy to lambast our young people for a lack of skills or awareness of what they need to thrive in the workplace.

And while I strongly believe more needs to be done in education to make sure youngsters have a greater knowledge of the ‘real world’, we all have a role to play too.

Offering work experience or work placements has to be one of the most practical and helpful ways in which a business can give something back – and, at the same time, get something back.

I am sure everyone has their own story about a ‘difficult’ work experience student and many now believe that it is more hassle than it’s worth.

It doesn’t have to be that way and while there are never guarantees of it working out, it can be a mutually beneficial process.

At my own company, Comtec, we try to offer as many placements as we possibly can – we took on more than 20 last year – and we find it a great way of offering youngsters a chance to see what a real working environment is like.

One of those work placement students has since become a full-time member of staff and that proves it can be a massive help in recruitment.

That won’t happen every time but businesses can still make the most of someone on work placement by having a plan of action in advance and by trying to ensure the person is right for you.

If they do arrive for two weeks and have no interest in your business, it could be a long fortnight and that is where it is best to know in advance what both parties want to get out of the placement.

As I said above, we often talk about our young people not having the skills or, indeed, even the understanding of what businesses require.

So this is our chance to make sure we do our bit to try to equip youngsters with some knowledge of the working world and business.

If it doesn’t directly benefit your business, it could help the wider economy and, ultimately, that will help all of us in business in the long run.

We have developed a good working relationship with a number of schools and they are only too happy to get on board because they can see the mutual benefit.

As a chamber, we are big advocates of work experience and work placements and it would be great to see more and more businesses – no matter how big or small – getting involved.