Three practitioners share their stories of volunteering with The Careers & Enterprise Company
CIPD members across the country are volunteering their time and expertise to help schools develop careers education strategies through a partnership with The Careers & Enterprise Company.
Here, three HR professionals share their experiences so far of helping students, teachers and parents to learn more about the career options available to school leavers.
Nick Bithell, HR director at Knights of Old Group
Having worked on one of the pilot studies, I was one of the first enterprise advisers. I’ve now been involved with the project for more than two years, and I’m the sole enterprise adviser for the school I am matched with.
At the beginning of the process, we put together a plan detailing what we wanted to achieve. We have two focuses at the moment: we're looking at improving and increasing the amount of contact time that students get with outside employers, and we've put together a scholarship system.
We invite other employers to the school for a day so that the students get to meet them – kind of like a carousel. They experience all types of jobs in that day. I work for a trucking company, so we'll take a truck on site and show them how it works. The Army will be there, the NHS – a range of employers from the local area.
We have a careers evening coming up, which is designed mainly for the students' parents because we've found there's a knowledge gap between parents and students about what kind of careers are available. It’s also an opportunity for us to talk to parents about apprenticeships – to explain what they are and to try to remove a bit of the stigma that surrounds them.
We’ve also done training sessions with teachers about the local job market and key industries in the area, which I think has provided them with a deeper understanding of what opportunities are out there.
There have been huge benefits for me, personally, too. It’s given me a much deeper understanding of how schools work, how funding works and the difference between the aims of a school and those of a business. It’s been a challenging, but extremely rewarding, experience.
Hazel Bradford, future talent recruitment adviser at Marks & Spencer
I wanted to get involved in the programme because I’ve worked in graduate and school-leaver recruitment for about seven years. As an employer, I know what we are looking for in school or university students – so being able to take that knowledge into schools is invaluable.
I was in the first batch of enterprise advisers in London. I did my application in January 2016 and had my first meeting the following month – things moved really quickly. I’ve been matched to a school just down the road, so it’s very convenient.
The training I received before I started was really good; we spent the morning at City Hall doing workshops, and heard from a headteacher, a careers adviser and some of the students themselves about how our expertise can help them.
I don’t think I really knew what to expect in the beginning; I went into it feeling like it was going to be a challenge, and it is, but perhaps not in the way I was expecting. My biggest surprise was learning that 65 languages are spoken at the school, which is a significant challenge because language barriers can hamper parent engagement. And, while the school seemed relatively advanced in careers provision, it soon transpired that teacher engagement was also an issue.
Tackling this lack of engagement was my first priority. I suggested that we run focus groups with some of the students to get their views, and I’m also planning to deliver a toolkit session for the teachers to teach them about the careers offering available at the school. The students have been amazed to learn about the different careers available at my employer – such as cybersecurity, food technology and software engineering – so it was great to be able to broaden their perspective.
I really enjoy being an enterprise adviser; the first-hand experience of schools has given me evidence to include in my CIPD experience assessment. Building relationships directly with a school has also given me additional credibility in my role at work.
Martin Warner, director at Secret Talent
I’ve been an enterprise adviser for about a year now. I’d been hearing a lot of noise about the skills gap, so when the opportunity came up to work alongside a school I felt it was important to volunteer not only to give back to the school, but also to build knowledge that can feed back into my role and the industry I work in.
The school I was paired with was very excited by the programme, which was fantastic. The key focus has been on building careers engagement from the first minute a student steps into secondary school, right the way through to when they leave at age 18.
My role has largely been about putting together a framework around employer engagement and careers advice, and engaging the school with these activities. I’ve helped them to build their own programme without actually doing the work for the school.
Being an enterprise adviser has given me a good sense of achievement and it’s been really helpful to gain a deeper understanding of educational systems. It gives me a sense of what children are going through at school from a careers advice point of view, and what the schools are trying to achieve. It’s also taught me that it’s better to engage with young people earlier on, because I think that helps to shape their careers more effectively.
All in all it’s been fun, it’s been impactful, and it’s opened my eyes to an opportunity around volunteering. I would definitely volunteer again.
CIPD members who are interested in finding out more about the Enterprise Adviser Network, or who want to register their interest, can do so by clicking here