Business to Deliver ‘Work Inspiration’ for Youth
21 August 2013 at 9:42 am
An employer-led program launched by the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA) this month will see corporates provide young people with more meaningful work experience opportunities.
The program, called Work Inspiration, will help businesses establish tailored work experience programs from one day intensives to four week pre-employability programs.
Based on a similar initiative in the UK, the program was developed by the youth services organisation in collaboration with community Not for Profit The Smith Family and banking giant NAB.
“Work experience is the first time a young person will be exposed to a workplace in an industry they are interested in,” FYA CEO Jan Owen said.
“Work Inspiration is a platform for employers to provide young people with a genuine and meaningful experience of work, linking what they learn in the classroom to the working world,” she said.
Paula Benson, General Manager of Corporate Responsibility at NAB, said corporates could gain from delivering these experiences.
“There are many tangible business benefits to offering work placement opportunities to young people, such as employee development and engagement, increased diversity and talent, improved business development and more effective community engagement.
“Our corporate responsibility focus is around wealth of opportunity. This makes sense to our employees and to our customers,” Benson said.
She said the program had been a callout for customer businesses to get involved, with over 70 attending the Work Inspirations launch and indicating an interest in the program.
Initial trials of the program at NAB had been a success, she said.
A three day program involving group sessions, on and off-site activities, and a filmmaking project was held at the company to evaluate the future potential of the program.
“We’ve already had a couple of cohorts through and we’re really excited to have more through and do a review later this year. We will ask how it worked for both our customers and our employees,” Benson said.
“We’re really interested in helping build a generation of work-ready young people.”
Other corporates trialling the program included Woolworths, McDonalds, Yamaha and Stockland.
Read an evaluation of NAB’s Work Inspiration pilot program here.
Prospective employers can download the starter kit here.
