Civil Service Organisations: T Level Industry Placement Journey - Planning
Lay solid foundations for a high quality, sustainable industry placement programme
Outcome
A framework is in place for the organisation to deploy the capabilities and resources required, internally and externally, to set up and manage a high-quality industry placement programme
Key steps
Move over a box to see what’s involved and click to go to the step you’re interested in.
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Determine a schedule for setting up and managing industry placements in your organisation |
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| 2 - Team |
Bring together a core group of people to help set up and manage the programme |
| 3 - Plan |
Identify the main activities to be carried out internally and externally to set up the programme |
| 4 - Providers |
Choose a provider (or providers) to partner with and develop a good working relationship with them during the planning process |
| 5 - Processes and documents |
Design core processes to prepare and deliver placements and produce related documents including electronic systems |
Timeline
The purpose of a timeline is to:
- Schedule the stages involved in setting up and managing industry placements
- Show the journey from start to finish
A timeline should show the main stages in the journey. The five stages used in this resource provide a high-level structure.
Each stage can be broken down into activities. These can be used to create a project plan.
Stages and activities
FCDO Services started planning its first T Level industry placement in 2022. The placement was for a single student. Planning took place over three months as shown in the timeline below. This was followed by a period of preparation getting everything ready for the placement to start when the student began the second Year of their T Level.
The planning stage was broken down into external and internal activities. The numbers on the right show the sequence of when the activities were carried out.
Further resources
Team
The purpose of having a team to set up and manage industry placements is to:
- Bring a variety of perspectives
- Spread the workload
- Network with departments and teams willing to host T Level students
Early in the organisation’s industry placement journey, it often helps to have one or two people who are advocates for T Levels and industry placements – T Level champions. They:
- Gain support for an industry placement programme within the organisation
- Set up and manage a pilot to demonstrate proof of concept
- Put robust policies, procedures and working practices in place
- Promote the programme
- Are a point of contact for anyone interested in hosting placements
One of the T Level champion’s main tasks is bringing together a supportive team to develop the programme and help to drive it forward.
DWP’s Digital central Digital Capability team is responsible for promoting T Levels and making sure that the industry placement programme is streamlined and standardised against all the other talent schemes they deliver.
The team:
- Goes out to business areas to obtain bids for industry placements
- Outlines the key activities for line managers to carry out with providers in preparation for the placements
- Agrees the approach to be used for the placements – what they look like when students come into role
- Gives line managers guidance on how to onboard students including welcome calls and emails
- Delivers a standard employability session to students and checks in with them during the placements
- Works with line managers to identify potential roles for students when they finish their T Level
DWP have 8 different practices , made up of Digital Group colleagues in similar professional disciplines. They each have a practice support team who will also support line managers and student throughout the placements.
One of the DfE’s T Level champions is Bex Barclay, who reflects on her role in helping the department to get its own industry placement programme off the ground.
“At the beginning we didn't really have a team working on it, it was mainly me that took a lead. And I think you would need someone like that who’s willing to be the face of the operation, speak to stakeholders, get a plan in place, and figure out the processes.
“And then ideally, you'd have someone else who's supporting that person, perhaps in a slightly lower grade, and they would be happy to work on the administrative stuff, the day-to-day emailing back and forth, setting up meetings, doing the pre-employment checks, all that kind of facilitation on the ground.
“I think the role of the T Level champion is never take no for an answer and keep pushing and really drive the benefits of having a T Level student. Most people don’t know what to expect. So I think a lot of the role is to draw out the benefits and offer support as well. A lot of line managers found it reassuring that they had a named contact who they could go to, who could give them answers or just hear them out and be a soundboard perhaps.
“You could probably manage it with two people. But you’d need support. It's only really with the cooperation of all the different line managers and HR and our seniors that we've actually been able to pull it off. Much of the credit really goes to the line managers because they do a lot for it.
“As far as setting up a placement programme goes, I don't think it takes a village in the team, but it definitely does take a village across the department.”
Further resources
Roles and responsibilities – supporting learners on their placement
Plan
The purpose of an industry placement project plan is to:
- Provide a framework for the industry placement programme in your organisation
- Identify the key activities needed to set up and manage the programme
The plan should identify:
- Who is coordinating the programme and what resources they have
- Which T Levels your organisation is offering industry placements in (see Further resources)
- How many placements the organisation is offering
- Which departments, teams and locations are willing and able to host placements
- Who are the line managers responsible for setting up and managing each placement
- Which T Level provider(s) are your partners
The plan should be updated annually.
External and internal planning
The plan drawn up by FCDO Services for its pilot programme involved external and internal activities during which details of the placement were agreed with the T Level provider and student, clearance was given, and the proposal signed off by senior management.
The planning process took four-and-a-half months from start to finish.
Early discussions with the provider went into more detail about what a student would need to cover for the placement to be successful. They also covered the security and confidentiality requirements needed before the student could start on a placement in a Civil Service organisation that sometimes handles sensitive and confidential information.
In later discussions towards the end of the planning stage, a job description was produced with the provider that set out the placement details including hours of work and which days the student would come into their placement.
The first step was to send all the details about the potential placement to security teams and other people that needed to be aware of it.
Discussions with the line manager in the host department then started in earnest, covering:
- What the placement would mean to the student
- What the student would need to cover in the placement
- Potential areas in the department they could work in
- Transport and funding travel costs
Downloads: FCDO Guidance for creating a T Level Placement Recommendation (see downloads at the end of the resource)
Further resources
Providers
Effective partnerships with providers are critical to maximising the value of industry placements. It is essential to develop a strong relationship with your provider(s) early on – they will be a valuable source of support in the planning stage.If your organisation has apprentices or offers work experience, you may already have links with local providers that deliver T Levels. Local links are useful because these providers are likely to have students who live within easy travelling distance of your placement sites.If you don't already have relationships with providers, you can:
- Search for a local T Level school or college
- Contact your Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and Chambers of Commerce
- Ask professional bodies and trade organisations in your sector
- Ask other Civil Service organisations for their recommendations
Working with multiple providers
Having many placements in different parts of the country inevitably involves partnerships with multiple providers. The DfE already works with around14 different providers, some with up to 20 students on placement and others with just a few. Effective coordination is the key.
One key message from the DfE’s industry placement team is that where there are multiple providers, engaging with them should start early in the annual cycle. Planning for the next cohort of students should be done collaboratively 6 to 9 months before the placements are due to start. This gives much greater clarity and avoids the risk of getting into a ‘one-on-one-off’ type of carousel, which can be destabilising to the partnership and may mean that students have to make rushed or last-minute choices.
A second key point is to have a key contact on each side, one in the department and one or possibly two who can speak for the provider. It’s especially important to communicate with them often in the early stage of the partnership, when providers are still figuring out how the relationship will work.
As one member of the DfE team says, “the Civil Service definitely has quirks which even the most experienced provider might not have experienced before.”
A third point is to have clear expectations on both sides. It’s helpful if providers say when their busy periods are, or when students are being assessed, or when the main point of contact is on leave. From the department’s side, it’s essential to manage expectations about start dates and how long the process of selecting students and preparing for the placement is going to take.
Downloads: HSE Provider List (see downloads at the end of the resource)
Further resources
Working with the right school, college or other provider
Processes and documents
The purpose of processes and documents is to:
- Create a consistently high-quality approach to industry placements across the organisation
- Support the efficient delivery of placements
You should have processes and documentation for the following:
- Choosing a provider
- Selecting a student
- Designing a placement delivery model
- Carrying out pre-placement checks including health and safety, clearance and security
- Training staff including line managers and mentors
- Onboarding the student
- Giving the student meaningful tasks and projects
- Supporting the student throughout the placement
- Helping the student to choose the next step in their early career.
Build on what exists
A good starting point is to look at what the organisation already does to manage and coordinate work experience, apprenticeships, graduate and other early talent programmes, because T Level placements require many of the same systems and processes.
Normal policies, practices and platforms used for recruitment, HR, security clearance and other employment-related processes will also apply to selecting and onboarding T Level students.
To make the processes and documents easy for line managers and others to see, the DfE created a T Level Industry Placement Sharepoint site
One of the department’s T Level champions, Bex Barclay, explains:
“One of the best things that I did whilst in role was creating the line manager SharePoint site. It’s basically like an information store, an intranet showing ‘Here's exactly how it happens from start to finish’. Mapping that out so people have that information is really important for our plan and timeline.”
Communicating the processes directly is just as important as making them accessible, says Bex:
“We have regular drop-in sessions as well because you might put something on a page on the intranet, but people might not quite take it in or they might not get to it all, there's so much information out there. So having drop-in sessions once a month means that our line managers understand and feel involved in the process.”
Further resources
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