Delivering Virtual Work Experience with
St Modwen Homes
In a bid to address the shortage of quality work experience opportunities on offer during the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been necessary to adapt our WiC programme, which is why we have partnered with St. Modwen Homes to deliver our very first virtual work experience programme (VWEX) this November with St Modwen Homes.
Two remote information sessions were held. The first was aimed at recruiting new women to the programme as well as supporting existing West Midlands WiC clients. The second was in association with Thomas Telford UTC aimed at recruiting their Year 11 and 13 female students.
A total of 34 women registered for these sessions by WiC Project Manager, Steph Shepherd and Alison Tucker, Early Years and Training Co-Ordinator at St Modwen Homes. The sessions gave details of support offered by WiC, St Modwen as a business, gave an insight in to what the VWEX programme would entail and included a live Q&A.
Following on from the information sessions one-to-one remote meetings were held with the women engaged to ascertain suitability for this particular programme. One of these women who wasn’t suitable for the programme, due to working full-time, has already started on our remote mentoring programme as an alternative support route.
The pilot VWEX programme ran for a week, 2nd – 6th November, and was a comprehensive introduction to house building with a particular focus on Health and Safety, a hot topic in the industry right now due to Covid-19. 12 women, aged 16 to 64 and based in different parts of England and Wales, were included.
Hosting the programme via Google classrooms, attendees were given a welcome pack full of activities. The timetable included a virtual site tour, role play, guest speakers from the Health & Safety, Technical, Commercial, Construction, HR, Planning and Design & Innovation teams and an independent project to complete and present at the end of the week.
Following on from VWEX all women have one-to-ones booked to support them with creating/updating their CV’s, LinkedIn profile and we will be working with them on interview skills and self-promotion. St Modwen are also recruiting for trainee apprenticeship positions that we will be encouraging them to apply for. We are also offering remote mentoring through our mentor database to all women on this programme as a way of additional IAG and support.
