WEXperience - Big Society and Social Capital Approach to WEX

WEXperience – An Affordable Alternative to Work Experience in the UK

The background - public sector cuts to frontline youth services such as Connexions are creating a serious squeeze on WRL activity, particularly Work Placement, which will adversely affect the opportunities for Gen Y to escape the rising unemployment and NEET trend.

Employer research proves that '1st Jobbers' are increasingly devoid of the social and 'soft' skills required in the modern workplace. Without real world experience of the work place, this skills gap will continue to increase, and the widening skills shortages for employers will also continue to increase.

WRL delivered within school does not provide students with the real world of work experiential learning they need to make them more 'work ready'.

The budget cuts to Local Authorities’ Youth Services actually mean a patchwork of provision nationally in this arena; some EBP's are managing to fill in some of the gaps in some of the regions - other EBP's have already disbanded before joining the fray.

It could also be argued that the Wolf Report may be interpreted by some schools as an excuse to cease WRL activity in school as it will neither be statutory nor reported on by Ofsted.

One example of the cost to school under the 'new school economy' is £45 per student per school being quoted to organise and deliver work placement services in a particular county - this figure is already being upgraded to a potential £90 per student per school for 2012.

If it is no longer mandatory/statutory for schools to provide this placement service, why wouldn’t they withdraw it if the saving is as much as £15 - £20k per year per year group?

The problem is clear - there is a real possibility of skills shortages increasing among young people unless we can provide them with focused, experiential, world of work opportunities.

The Solution - A scalable solution that encompasses the ethos of Big Society, maximises the breadth of social capital available and draws on some good ideas of the past.

In many schools we see active parents assisting in the process of work placements; infact, it is not so rare now for parents and students to actively seek work placements that they feel would be more beneficial than the current lottery .

This is the foundation for a new, more streamlined and simple solution, which encourages 'society' - ie parents, carers, guardians, friends to take responsibility for their children by helping 1 day a year with WEXperience - Take your Kids to Work Day.

Those students that do not benefit from the social capital that others may benefit from, would be helped by the streamlined WEX service directly to find Employer 'Adoptors' (as is the current system).

This would create a substantial cost saving to Government and LA's, whilst delivering a guaranteed 1 day per student WEXperience as the minimum delivery outcome for all students - quality and quantity. We have been looking at the outreach possibility in terms of assessment of work readiness skills following these WEXperience days, with a London University  looking with us at the possibility of providing a national assessment and a certifcation framework to help students what they will have learned from their 'WEXperience'.

Going forward, this WEXperience solution could be extended to tackle growing youth employment in the UK, by providing the basic world of work insight that many young people currently lack, which is often cited as a barrier to employment entry by the UK’s employers and is a rising and worrying trend.

Systems can be changed from the bottom up - WEXperience could be the start of a small but significant change to Work Placement provision in the UK - we are already working with a number of regions to create a scalable proof of concept pilot - email me for more information on how to help us shape a new solution for our students, you can't change anything if you don't get involved!