Different work practices in industry and how to integrate student placements

1
Different work practices in industry and how to
integrate student placements

• By
• Ian Sunley
• Placements Year Leader, Computing

2
Introduction

• As the most experienced placement academic in the
  faculty I was asked to consult on how to expand
  the placements offered in non computing subjects
  in the faculty.
• How some of the industries associated with those
  subjects worked meant a major rethink on how we
  normally run a placement.

3
Why do a Placement?

• According to ASET (Association of Sandwich
  Education Training) the benefits of placements
  are
• To students - the experience and discipline of
  working in a business environment and the
  opportunity to develop skills in particular
  areas.
• To industry - At a reasonable cost, employers can
  benefit from an enthusiastic staff member, fresh
  from two years undergraduate study, who can often
  be targeted at specific short to medium term
  projects.
• For Universities - help academic institutions
  provide graduates with the qualities that
  employers have informed them that they require.

4
How industries work.

• There has always been an assumption that
  industries work around the permanent employee
  principal working 5 days a week for around 38
  hours.
• However in the flexible world that we live in
  this is changing and if we want to continue with
  the benefits that placements give we have to
  adjust.

5
Study of different practices in my Faculty

• The Faculty is split into 3 distinct subject
  areas
• Computing - 300 placements a year
• Engineering - 20 placements a year.
• Technology - 100 placements a year and growing
  to 300.
• The working practices in Computing Engineering
  are similar.
• Technology is something completely different.

6
Computing Engineering

• Work on the general principal of taking on most
  staff permanently to work on various jobs as and
  when they arrive giving relatively long term
  employment.
• 2 types of placement both paid.
• The placement is a permanent role within the
  company with the student being replaced annually
  generally with some overlap (2 - 4 weeks)
• The placement is a one year only role to support
  a project needing extra technical experience for
  a short term. (e.g. Role out of a new software
  package across a large organisation)

7
Technology

• Film Technology - works with the Film
  Television industries. They will hire people at
  the start of a project (a new TV programme) and
  then release them on completion.Total work could
  be as little as 4 - 6 weeks.
• Music Technology - works with the music industry
  which covers everything from sound engineers to
  musicians. They are often recruited for one or
  two nights at a time.

8
Technology

• Games Design. Works with the computer games
  industry. Highly secretive industry because a new
  game can create multi millionaires in a short
  time if a game is popular.
• E.g. One online subscription game went 0 to 1
  million subscribers in 5 years. Each subscriber
  pays around 15 monthly.
• They are very suspicious and have very little
  money in the early development years.

9
Solutions so far 1.

• For Computing, Engineering and most of Games
  Technology we use a conventional 48 week
  placement.
• The students are employed by a company as if they
  are one of the normal employees. This means that
  they are covered by the companies Health Safety
  and employment laws.
• Nearly all Computing Engineering students are
  paid a salary of around 1400 a month.
• Games students sometimes have to work unpaid as
  the companies cannot afford to pay them.

10
Solutions so far 2.

• TV Film students have 3 options
• A) They can decide not to do a placement and
  continue to final year.
• B) They can apply for a small number of self
  employed placements we have in association with
  some other central UK universities.
• C) They can select to set up their own companies
  and seek short term film TV jobs, generally for
  no pay.

11
Self Employed Placements

• The University has a number of startup business
  units which it rents out to new companies. The
  students can start their own business in one of
  these units and run it for 12 months.
• They receive 150 a month, free office
  accommodation and free use of a computer and
  access to the University network.
• They are required to attend a series of business
  seminars to teach them the basic of accounts,
  law, sales and marketing.
• If the company is successful they can continue it
  after the placement year. Some students finish
  the degree part time, others keep the business on
  hold until they have completed their studies.

12
Setting up your own company

• Prior to going on placement the Film Music
  students have to complete a module on how to set
  up a freelance company and what paper work they
  need to keep for taxation purposes.
• The student is required to set up a freelance
  company so that he can work on contract in the
  Film Music Industry.
• He then needs to look for short contracts within
  the industry. The tutors give initial guidance as
  the best places to look.
• Over the 48 weeks the student should work 16
  weeks and keep a record of all his applications.

13
Assessment

• All the students have a university tutor who will
  visit them twice during the year.
• They all have a report to write about the year.
• The conventional 12 month students are also
  assessed by an industrial tutor.
• The self employed students are also assessed on
  presentations they need to give on company
  progress.
• The free lance students will need to give
  references of who they have worked for.

14
Does it work?

• 12 month placements have been used for over 40
  years.
• The self employed placements have been running
  for 3 years now and seem to be working.
• The freelance placement is too new to assess yet.
  We hope it will work.

15
Where to now?

• This now needs to be extended outside of the
  faculty and university.
• I am sure there are many other industry models
  that we need to address all over Europe.

16
Questions Please