Work Experience: The Employers Perspective
By Karen Holmes
In May 2025, the Government’s Work Experience Guarantee set out their ambition that every young person is able to access two weeks’ worth of high-quality, multiple workplace experiences. […] Over a student’s journey through secondary education they [should] experience 50-hours of workplace experiences. These opportunities should go beyond the horizons of their immediate friends and family to broaden aspirations and build confidence. They can include employer-engagement in after-school clubs, employer-led projects and small-group visits to employers.
Modern Work Experience – West Sussex, Brighton & Hove Careers Hub
As the new work experience guidelines come into play, education providers face a lot of challenges, and the most taxing is finding appropriate organisations that are willing to get involved. So much is dependent on location; in some areas there are established programmes that offer structured placements, mentors, personnel who are willing to go into schools to introduce their work to students. In other areas, there is almost nothing, and teachers/careers advisers will be reliant on local contacts, friends and families to find some way of fulfilling the requirements.
Finding employers who can contribute to work experience is always difficult. All organisations face challenges, and their priority has to be their own survival and continued success. I’ve spoken to employers who would be delighted to help but they simply don’t have the time, resources, staff or knowledge of how to deliver that help.
Taking a young person into a workplace is not simply a question of saying, ‘Fine, come in next Monday and we’ll find you something to do.’ Employers must have in place appropriate liability insurance, safeguarding provision, health and safety guidelines. In some cases, staff may also need DBS checks.
An effective placement will be structured, delivered by appropriately trained personnel – and produce records. Not an easy task unless the organisation has either dedicated staff or a department to oversee liaison with schools and colleges. The local shop or solicitor’s office that has kindly offered to take in a couple of students for a few days so they can see how the operation works is unlikely to be equipped to meet the many ambitions of the government’s aspirations.
For those employers who do get involved, what they want if they are offering work experience is often quite simple:
- Students turning up when they are expected
- Engagement and interest with the working environment
- A willingness to listen, take instruction and participate.
Many staff will have children of their own and will be familiar with the challenges they can present when they’re in an unfamiliar environment. They won’t underestimate the absolute terror an adolescent can experience when faced by adults they don’t know telling them things they don’t understand. They will know how to deal with the ‘rabbit in the headlight’ look, the feigned disinterest and the appearance of surly resentment because they’ll have experienced it with their own kids. But not everyone in the workplace will have those skills – or the time and patience.
Before any of your students engage in work experience of any kind, ask them to think about it from the employers’ perspective and emphasise the importance of politeness and receptiveness. Hopefully, for the majority of them, this will not be too much of a challenge.
Youth Employment UK (https://www.youthemployment.org.uk/about-us/) provides a wealth of information for employers, students and education providers. Most importantly, it is user friendly! As well as guidelines for providing work experience, it champions good practice for everyone involved, offers a search engine for work experience opportunities and has plenty of careers resources for young people. It’s worth a look.
