Work experience with the Health and Safety Executive
Last year the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) Communications team welcomed university students Sonia and Hannah – final year students year at Liverpool John Moores University – for a week of work experience.
Working with the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, the HSE comms team agreed that the aim of the week was to showcase the communications profession and HSE to young, ambitious people at a point in their lives where they are considering their future career goals. HSE is the largest Government Communication Service employer in Merseyside, for a regulator with a remit that is now expanding beyond worker safety to areas such as work-related stress, building safety and the safe transition to Net Zero.
Sonia and Hannah joined the comms team for a week, shadowing various teams and getting involved in social media, external affairs, campaigns, media relations, web and digital, content and internal communications. Working across the team meant that they were given a full introduction to HSE and the Civil Service. The comms team thoroughly involved getting both Sonia and Hannah into discussions and activities; as young people from harder to reach audiences, their input was invaluable and provided many interesting ideas.
The experience marked the start of an effective outreach journey for HSE’s communications branch. The positive feedback from all sides means it’s likely to be a regular event in the calendar.
“I am grateful I was part of this experience. I was given tips and advice I am surely going to use in the future! I cannot stress enough how these types of work experience enlightens students and being able to do them is wonderful.”
Sonia
“The experience has been so helpful, we have learned so much and covered areas that we didn’t even know were part of what HSE does. Considering that I started the week with very limited knowledge of HSE, I am ending the week with an interest in BSR (building safety) comms, and I am hoping to learn more about their role in the future.”
Hannah
If you want to run a similar activity, the GCS Outreach Page has templates and guidance which GCS members can use in your own teams.