Providing work experience opportunities

Work experience should be beneficial both to you and the young person, so it is essential they are given as much insight into the world of work as possible.

This will allow opportunities for professional development and ensure they can demonstrate their practical experience to potential employers in the future.

Some suggestions for the types of tasks include:

• offer them a project to work on during the placement
• identify some work shadowing or team working opportunities
• assign a task for them to work on which is supervised but with scope to use their own ideas and creativity
• some administrative tasks such as answering telephones, sending emails, minute taking or filing

You could also ask the student directly if they have any suggestions for what they would like to do, or improvements they think could be made within your business.