Work Experience

My first experience of the workplace was at Ogden’s Empire Stores in Wigan.

My first job: peeling the prices off jars of jam, cleaning off any residues from the sticky labels with a damp cloth, and neatly applying a new – higher – price.

It was 1979 and inflation was running at around 25% creating enormous problems for my grandfather – the eponymous Mr Ogden – who had a number of shops in the Wigan and St. Helen’s area. “It’s a sorry state of affairs lad,” he’d confided in me, “but at least we won’t be rubbing our customers’ noses in it by selling ‘em jars covered in bits of old price label.”

In the years that followed I spent an increasing amount of time in my grandfather’s shops, learning about the disciplines required to run a successful retail business: attention to detail; customer service; team working and team leadership; financial management; and – probably the toughest of all – how to earn the confidence of staff, even though you’re the boss’ grandson!

These are lessons I’ve drawn upon every day of my working life and I appreciate how lucky I am to have learned them from a real master. And it’s this realisation that has made me passionate about the importance of high quality work experience opportunities for young people.

Across the UK around 95% of young people, around half a million a year, undertake work experience placements while they are still in full-time education. And, since 2004, it has been a legal requirement for all students in England to experience work-related learning – which includes both “enterprise education” and work experience – between the ages of 14 and 16.

Given my experience at Ogden’s Empire Stores, you’ll not be surprised that the quality of the work experience places we offer at McDonald’s has always been high on my list of priorities. And, although the business has been delivering a formally-structured, fully-documented programme for over 15 years, I felt that the time had come for a step-change in what we are offering our work experience students.

Why? Well at a time when youth unemployment is at record levels, I think that every employer – regardless of whether they are currently growing or reducing the size of their workforce – should be investing in the employability of our next generation of talent. Equipping them with the skills they will need when they enter the workplace.

Now to some that may sound somewhat idealistic. After all, times are tough, and the vast majority of work experience students will not end up working for the organisation where they do their placement.

But, as Henry Ford said, “an idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous”. A statement he made to emphasise the underlying pragmatism of his famous $5 dollar-a-day offer to workers who would accept the rigours of working on his innovative new production lines. A pragmatism which was rooted in the fact that if you were going to create a mass-market product, you also needed to create a mass-market to buy it.

And, for me, an investment in work experience is an investment in the future prosperity of our next generation of customers. An investment that’s good for them – and good for the future of our business too.

Which is why, last month, I was thrilled to be able to launch McDonald’s new work experience programme. A programme which can lead to a Level-2 BTEC Certificate in Work Skills (the equivalent of a GCSE Grade B) awarded by EdExcel.

This is the first time a major employer has embedded the requirements of a nationally recognised qualification into its business as usual work experience programme, and I believe that it has the potential to raise the expectations of employers, educators, and students alike.

 Employers will be expected to deliver work experience placements of even higher standards. Teachers will be expected to prepare and support work experience students, following-up on their placement with assignments which will embed their learning. And students will be expected to take work experience seriously, as an important part of their preparation for the world of work.

Expectations which I believe will help every organisation understand the value of work experience, and invest in it in the level-headed expectation of seeing a long-term return on that investment.

Granddad Ogden would have approved.

Published in HR Magazine April 2010