Work experience has important benefits

by Claudia Wood

Since the public backlash of the Government’s “workfare” plans, the DWP has been on the offensive. Chris Grayling and IDS have been doing the rounds – the Daily Mail, Guardian, Telegraph, Radio 4, Sky News – I’ve probably missed some – all had the ministers furiously explaining that the work experience placements are voluntary, with sanctions (suspension of benefits) only being used if applicants pull out after more than a week. The inspired phrase “job snobs” has been used to describe those who oppose the work experience scheme – alongside ‘sneering elites’, ‘anti-capitalists’ and ‘luddites’. 

I thought this counter attack against the concerns being expressed was a bit vitriolic and personal, but on reflection, I understand the Government’s anger. Work experience is a central element of the Work programme, the flagship welfare to work scheme for those who are long term unemployed. An eight week stint of work experience is a vital part of work readiness training, builds skills and self-esteem and, for a significant proportion, can lead to a permanent job with the work experience host. So to have the scheme stymied by a group of commentators who (incorrectly) accuse the scheme of being a form of forced labour must be infuriating. And stymied it will be if the negative press targeted at those involved in the scheme (Tesco’s and others) prompts them to withdraw to avoid the wrath of their customers.

But should Chris Grayling simply attack his critics for being motivated by a political agenda or class prejudice against retail jobs? Is the Government a blameless victim of misinformation? I think they need to take some of the blame for this mess. 

First, I would argue that the lack of clarity around the work experience model has encouraged people to assume the worst. Although the placements are voluntary, some sanctions are used against drop-outs, and this scheme operates alongside four week Mandatory Work Activity placements. Moreover, different rules are being applied to ESA claimants, where sanctions (essentially creating a compulsory scheme) seem very much on the table. Having a clear line on each of these variations may have reduced the margin for confusion. Second, the ministers have refused to countenance the possibility that work experience is being implemented inappropriately on the ground. Anecdotal evidence suggests some job seekers at least have been told they have to take the voluntary placement or risk losing their benefits. If the scheme is not being described as intended, and giving itself a bad name, the Government should vow to look into this and tackle concerns with action, rather than simply cast doubt on the motivations of those who are concerned. 

Perhaps finally, there is a presentational issue. The sanctions that exist for work placement drop-outs are, according to Chris Grayling, to protect employers from investing in job seekers’ training only to have them stop showing up after a fortnight. I’m sure this rule was well meaning, but it adds to an unfortunate overall impression: that the job seeker is the feckless one, and it is the employer who is doing the government and the jobseeker a service by taking them on. This should be turned on its head. Just as the employer should be protected from drop-outs, so the jobseeker should be protected from a poor quality experience. Their contribution should be given greater value: the employer, after all, is getting eight weeks’ free labour. In return, the employer should be expected to provide a varied and high quality placement, where the job seeker is able to try a few different things, perhaps shadow different people to get the widest range of new skills and experiences. This is not – as the Government is keen to point out – workfare, where people are expected to work in return for their benefits. This is supposed to be a training tool, like a good apprenticeship. To achieve this, the government should forge a ‘responsibility deal’ with employers based on a two-way relationship – work in return for experience. Perhaps if the Government had taken this line from the start, and ensured the scheme was being implemented as such on the ground, then there would have been fewer grey areas for opposition to grow. But it’s certainly not too late – if the Government acts now to tackle the causes of confusion, rather than simply pointing out that people are confused.

Tristram Hooley

Thanks for this - the debate has become very polarised in a very unhelpful way.

I think that you are right to point out the dangers of compulsion. This is not to say that there is no place for compulsion, but to be aware that the likelihood of someone having a positive developmental, learning experience is probably reduced by "or else".

Having said this, I also think that work experience is an appropriate and vital part of a welfare to work strategy. Work experience can build skills, enhance social capital and provide jobseekers with valuable experience. I also think that it is important, as you say, to base work experience around a two way understanding of the needs of both the individual and the employer. However one thing that I feel does need to be thought about more is the context which this work experience fits into.

If work experience is simply a question of sending people off to do a temporary job for six weeks with no support then it does run the risk of either parking jobseekers in notional employment that fails to serve either their needs or the needs of employers. Alternatively, and this is what critics are rightly concerned about, that you end up work experienced simply serving as slave labour.

To address this I think that you need to both work with the employer to look at their practice and how they conceptualise the role of work experience, but also to provide the jobseeker with a learning and reflective context which they can use to process what they are getting out of the placement.

How the provision of this learning context and associated advice and guidance is organised is a real policy challenge. However the government has both Work Programme providers and the (soon to be launched) National Careers Service to play this role. It is important that further thought is given to how these different elements interface.

We've been doing some research and thinking in this area if you are interested in talking more.

Dr Tristram Hooley
Head of the International Centre for Guidance Studies
University of Derby
http://www.derby.ac.uk/icegs

Ronald Cherrycoke

Jonathan Portes's blog on this subject provides some useful data on whether or not these interventions have an impact. The government's claim that 50% stop claiming benefits or take up permanent posts would be good if this wasn't the case irrespective of whether you did work experience or not. http://notthetreasuryview.blogspot.com/2012/02/work-experience-does-it-work.html

Malcolm Rasala

Sorry Claudia, you doubtless mean well. But your thinking is delusional. Work experience has NO benefits. NO benefits to the Employer. NO benefits to the individual undertaking the work. Only a think tanker delusionally thinks otherwise. You live in a world of policy wonks. Not the real world of business.

My company once thought like you. We used to have at any one time
ten young people undergoing work experience with us. We thought we were doing good. We thought those with is were gaining. But we stood back and assessed who was gaining. Were we the company gaining in any real substantive money making way? No we were not.

Were we equipping these youngsters to go out and create their own companies, think new innovative ways of business, create products?
In essence no. Rather like time in the army individuals went through the process but did not come out the other side necessarily better equipped to deal with life. Look at the number of soldiers who end up on the streets. Look at the Labour MP a former major? who just been charged with common assault in the House of Commons bar.

Now you policy wonks with your vast generalizations think say army
experience is good. You have not an ounce of evidence for this belief.
And the when the evidence is presented to you that it is not always good you shrug your shoulders and ignore what is in front of your eyes. Ditto work experience.

Work experience is a form of army training. Now wonder Tories like.
it. No wonder right wing think-tankers like it like Demos. But all it does is get young people off the streets for a short time. Does it create craetive thinking. Nope. Will it create one Steve Jobs? Show us one. Will it create a new science. Show us one. Work experience has been around for decades now. Where is your research that it has established new companies, new thinking, a new sum of knowledge. As yet you have presented not a shred of evidence that it leads anywhere. It is like a faith, a silly superstitious religion. You think
it leads to good but the evidence for your belief does not exist. Or you have not found it.

So sorry you are delusional. You think what you are proposing is for the good. But in truth you have not the foggiest idea that it does or is.
malcolm.rasala@realcreativesglobal.com

Reality

Why is it that that all these 'welfare to work' advocates seemingly all work in the public sector. Has Tristram Hooley above
Head of the International Centre for Guidance Studies ever worked a day of his life in the private sector? Has he run a company? Has he started a company? What equips him to term himself Head for Guidance Studies? We should be told.

Ditto Claudia Wood. Her bio indicates that she has spent her entire life in an ivory tower world of political philosophy but never the real world that most of humanity exists in.

The possible?hypocrisy in this debate mirrors the reality of the like of Iain Duncan Smith.He lives off the state. He takes £3000 a week from the state. But he says disabled children are not entitled to state
benefit. However, he a total fit and able man is. Why? Because he is a politician who thinks he knows best how the rest of humanity should
provide for each other. £3000 a week in his pocket from state coffers is morally good (Remember he is a Christian (Love thy Neighbour as yourself. If you would be perfect go sell all that you have and give it the poor). But in his world view the poor should suffer. The unemployed ( in part because of his economic policies) should suffer Poor Law strictures 'Welfare to Work' et al. It is state handouts for them. But deserved pay for him.

Cynical? Yup. Claudia Wood and her kind like IDS, like Grayling are moral reprobates. They are scoundrels. Their thinking is the thinking of selfishness and nastiness. They are Thatchers spawn. They possess not an ounce of moral decency. They see others in a way they could never ever believe others see them. Their thinking is the thinking of the morally dead.

Mark Macho

Britain has had work placement for years. And large numbers
of unemployed for years. And also large numbers of people
working for foundations financed by God knows who
and taxpayer funded advisory boards telling us , though they have
never entered the competive world of work and services themselves,
that work placement will solve unemployment. Not very bright.
But a good sop for those who think an elaborate mind game
is a social contribution of epic proportion.

A job that does not pay may be educative , but if someone needs to support himself it is not a job. Unemployment is the lack of jobs,
not the lack of education. Work placement does nothing to solve it.

Brendan Caffrey

The key thing here is how many get jobs full time after the 8 weeks?
Further, it is really interesting to know of those who do get jobs, how many get it with their existing employer, and how many with another employer.
Johnathon Portes stats are worth looking at !

See my blog at:
whyworkttoday2967.wordpress.com/

claudia

Malcolm,

You say your company did not gain “in any substantive money making way” – many companies these days actually measure success by more than simply making money. And, I would argue, that work placement for many companies are a form of recruitment which allow the employer to test out a young recruit before offering them a job. Perhaps not in your industry, but I wouldn’t generalise that “work experience has NO benefits” based on your individual company’s experience.

You seem also to suggest that unless work experience enables young people to “create their own companies” or think of “new innovative ways of business” then experience is a failure. Unless it creates “one Steve Jobs” then it is a failure. This, to me, seems the real delusion.
There are thousands of young people who leave school without any qualifications beyond GCSE and without any work experience, and attempt to enter the job market every year. In the current economic climate this is proving very difficult – employers are looking for qualification, experience, or both. For these young people, getting a foot in the door of a large retailer and getting some transferable customer service skills on their otherwise fairly bare CVs is invaluable. They may not be learning to become the next Steve Jobs, but are you seriously suggesting that’s the only useful form of Work Experience and nothing else that might improve employability counts for anything?

The Work Experience system is not perfect (as my blog clearly states, I am not a fan of the way it is currently being implemented) but to suggest that it shouldn’t be undertaken because it doesn’t enable people to set up their own businesses or “create a new science” is absurd.

Work Experience, if used correctly, is an important form of skills training. I am differentiating this from compulsory work and from poor quality placements which provide few opportunities to try new things and build new skills – both of which are possible (even likely) in the current unregulated system.

I am not claiming there is evidence to suggest work experience “established new companies, new thinking and a new sum of knowledge” – but no one ever was suggesting this. Work Experience is not being heralded as a magic solution to boosting small business start-up. But there are over 1 million 16-24 year olds unemployed at the moment. Some of them have absolutely no work experience whatsoever and struggle to make it even to interview stage. Most are not looking to start their own businesses, or “create a new science”. They’re just looking for a job.

As Johnathan Portes' useful blog (thankyou for mentioning, Brendan) states, the current work experience offer from the government may not be the most successful method of boosting people’s employability, but that’s a reason improve the design – not to cast off the entire concept.

claudia

Reality – did you actually read my blog? Have you read my other blogs and seen my position on the Welfare Reform Bill and disability benefits?

Sticking to this topic, I reiterate: I oppose the current set up of Work Experience, the government’s ambivalent position around “it’s voluntary… but you get sanctioned” and the fact there are no safeguards or quality standards in place to ensure someone in Work Experience actually gets a decent placement, some proper experience and skills training.

But I also feel the polarisation of the debate – with anyone who suggests the system can be *improved* rather than scrapped outright being labelled “thatcher’s spawn” – unhelpful.

People with no work experience and struggling to find a job are currently getting skills training and class-room style support from the Work Programme, but Work Experience – actually doing some training on the job and being able to put it down on your CV – is really important.

If people think they will benefit from some Work Experience, they should have the option to do so. It should involve a varied mix of experiences, maybe some shadowing and mentoring, but if they don’t like it, they should be able to stop without penalty. I don’t see how this makes me “morally dead”?

David Vinter

This posting worries me, I can't think how throwing bricks at one another is going to help anyone much.
Firstly may I explain where I come from. Sorry but I'm 75 now, and have worked for big and small firms, been self employed a lot, and have run my own small business. Also I left Grammar School at 16, [ father was a farmer, and we all moved 30 miles to another farm, and in those days I did as I was told,I was needed for family labour].
At 32 having married I escaped, and [ with necessary exams done at night school], I gained my degree in Jt Hons Economics/Agricultural Economics from Nottingham University, so I think I can claim a fair experience of the world of work.
Today looking at the European situation for employment, and especially for young folk, I think things have seriously changed for worse. I fear that no longer can any government spend huge money for 'growth', [assuming it can raise it without also incurring massive debt], and expect as in times past, there to be an automatic flow of new jobs. Employers today wherever possible invest into the absolute automation of production---[ machines won't argue about redundancy, won't sue, and surprisingly unlike employees have a second hand value!].
Governments to me seem to be trying to fix today's problem with yesterday's panacea. They cry out for more education and training, seemingly to somehow expect to get most workers to be
'ABOVE AVERAGE', sorry but not possible! Yes there will always be a need for workers to --Rod the Drains out, Slaughter cattle, sheep and pigs, and be one man/woman small business's doing individual skilled jobs like building a new fireplace, rewiring an old house. But I very much doubt without a real attack on new housebuilding the present unemployment figures will ever return to the comfortable old ways.
The problem this is worldwide, on TV 6 months ago a saw an Indian car factory---full of robots, even there it was better that labour for effective production. Yet still humans produce an extra one and a half million new progeny every week! If labour want good jobs this is not the way to go. Personally, against all the talk of optimism, I doubt our already overstretched earth will continue to keep us adequately fed and watered,then look out for trouble unless we all change our ways, and quickly.

Malcolm Rasala

Claudia have you been a HR Director? What experience have you had in employment? Have you run a company? Have you worked in recruitment? We should surely be told what experience you have to pontificate on this subject. I may be wrong but it sounds like you have none. Prove me wrong.

You are of course entitled to your opinion but if it is just an opinion based on no direct experience then that is all it is. An opinion. Nothing more and not really worthy to we who work across many industries from the creative to law to medicine to new media and on. What experience do you have? Why should anyone listen to your ivory tower thinking.

As for your statement "many companies these days actually measure success by more than simply making money". Name one. You are talking nonsense. Making money is what business is all about. Its what pays the taxes that keeps wonks like you doing nothing of any consequence to the wealth of the nation. Or the intelligence by the look of it. You think tank wonks rather over estimate your importance. Fortunately no one really takes much notice of all your wonk think. But what a waste of perhaps potentially intelligent minds.
The world existed quite well, industries grew, empires rose and fell, companies large and small flourished brilliantly without the army of think tank wonks who now parasite our body politic.

As for generalisations talk about the pot calling the kettle black. All your blogs are nothing but generalisations. And based on what?

Doubt as Voltaire observed is painful but certainty is absurd

Reality

No you do not see Claudia that is the problem. This Work Experience programme is a typical politicians con trick. We learn that the woman who is Cameron's guru on the subject paid herself £8.5 million last year. That is £8.5 million of tax payers money. Did you earn £8.5 million last year? What did she do to deserve this. Name her success.
It gets worse. Her company has contracts with this government of £165 million. And it is just one of many. Lets see how many cases more of fraud are discovered. There are 8 police investigations going on so far.

£165 million of tax payers money being paid out because the warped morality of IDS and the nasty Daily Mail mindset that so plagues those politicians who all themselves live off the state but 'hate' the poor who do. And you have the temerity to say you cannot see why all this personifies 'the morally dead'.

Mark Macho

And all this is an economically unproductive hot air bath!
What does it produce? Jobs? No! Goods? No! Ideas that
change things , let alone better them? No! What a waste of breath!
You cannot eat hot air. You cannot live on it . I suppose
you can park yourself in it and doze off.

Even the Prince in the fairytale had to actually solve the riddle
to win the Princess. He couldn't just talk her to death!

claudia

Malcolm - whilst I have, in fact, run a company (admittedly not a big enterprise, but registered and functioing nonetheless), I was basing my thoughts on my knowledge of the work programme, labour markets and welfare reform to suggest improvements to the current system.

I'm sorry you feel my blogs are nothing but generalisations, but your thoughts are also generalisations based on your personal experience of finding no value in Work Experience. I don't think you should try and speak for every employer and every industry who do find value in work experience. I would also suggest, if you hold think tanks, policy wonks and my blogs in such disregard, you stop reading the demos blog as it's only likley to lead to disappointment.

Reality - I made no comments regarding Emma Harrison, bankers' bonuses, welfare reform or any other potential areas for a wider debate regarding the morality of pay inequalities and the victimisation of the disabled and unemployed by the tabloid press, fed by DWP.

There are certain issues within these debates which might be described as morally dubious, or 'dead' as you put it. However you were referring to my belief that proper work experience can be useful as morally dead, which I think it's a step too far.

Malcolm Rasala

So you think you are wiser than Burger King, Waterstones and the numerous large, experienced successful companies that are ditching this immoral Welfare to Work thinking do you Claudia? Interesting. Telling.

I cannot remember saying I spoke for every employer. I intimated my personal experience might be matched by that of others. And the fast withdrawal by many large companies of this 'slavery' system you are pushing seems to be proving me right.

I agree with Reality. This nasty thinking is really no more than immoral slavery. It is the thinking of academics like you with no real
experience of any depth. That would be one thing. But to support
IDS and his fellow ministers mean policies is pretty dispicable. Remember he - a millionaire - takes £3000 a week from the public purse for doing exactly what? For proposing kids fresh out of school unemployed through no fault of their own, but manifestly his economic philosophy should work for nothing but their unlivable on state entitlements (their parents and family members paid theit taxes for these entitlements).

As more and more companies withdraw from this appalling selfishly motivated wonk think policy it will be interesting to see if your views change. Lets see reality and experience hit the fan. By the way can you tell us what 'Work Experience' you did for no wages. We should surely be told. No?

Voltaire

So now we know. The 'benefit' of work experience that ivory tower Claudia speaks of is in essence free/slave labour supplied to rich multi-national companies. There is simply no depth these Tory think tankers will not stoop to. There take away benefits from disabled children. They saddle our children with educational debts they themselves never had to pay. And now stooping ever lower they force young people to work for no salary for the like of American companies like McDonalds and Starbucks and heve the audacity to call serving cups of coffee and hamburgers 'work experience'. As Malcolm says the morality of it all is vomit inducing.

Reality

A 17 year high in unemployment. And these Tories talk about 'work experience' One has to wonder what Claudia and her kind are drinking.
O and of course higher debt to fund 2.67 million unemployed. Don't you just love their economic logic!

Malcolm Rasala

SCOUSERS JOIN FERRARI

"The Ferrari F1 team fired the entire pit crew yesterday"

This announcement followed ferraris decision to take advantage of the british governments work for your dole scheme and employ liverpudlian youngsters.
...
The decision to hire them was brought about by a recent documentary on how unemployed youths from toxteth were able to remove a set of wheels in less than 6 seconds without proper equipment,whereas ferraris crew took 8 seconds with millions of pounds worth of equipment.

However, Ferrari got more than they bargained for!

At the crews first practice session, not only was the scouse pit crew able to change all four wheels in under 5 seconds but within 12 seconds they had re-sprayed,re-badged and sold the car to the Mclaren team for 8 cases of stella, a bag of weed and some photos of lewis hamiltons bird in the shower!

Elizabeth M

Watch yesterday's Panorama programme on the governments Apprenticeship scheme via BBC iPlayer. Truly shocking. 40% of workers at Morrisons are on shelf-filling apprenticeships that we the taxpayer are paying for. We must be mad. Who thought this absudity up?

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