Click Travel's chief Jill Palmer on making work experience virtual this year

Helping hand

The inspiration came after Palmer attended a virtual networking lunch featuring special guest and record-breaking British cyclist Mark Beaumont, who talked about his lockdown experience.

“He drew a grid about work, family and community and talked about how he’d taken action in each of those spheres during lockdown. I thought: I need to do something for the community and I’m going to make this [virtual work experience] happen.”

Palmer asked for volunteers at Click Travel to help organise the two days of virtual work experience, which took place on 17 and 18 August, and had plenty of willing helpers. “We had five or six employees volunteer, including some who recently joined our Click Start graduate scheme,” says Palmer.

The company promoted the work experience on their social media channels and also used their contacts at local colleges in disadvantaged areas of Birmingham to offer the opportunity to teenagers aged between 15 and 18.

“In the end we had 20 kids attend from nine different schools,” says Palmer. "It was brilliant to see so many young people take the opportunity to join. We know that many work experience placements have been cancelled all over the country because of the ongoing pandemic, so it was great to organise a way to make sure the opportunity wasn’t lost.”

Skilling up

Click Travel created a virtual website ahead of the workshops and asked the teenagers to sign up for sessions based on their interests.

The sessions, which took place over Zoom, were designed to give the students a taste of different areas within the business including marketing, sales, customer service and product engineering.

“Activities included learning how to code, trying their hand at sales and finding out how to use social media to promote themselves and get a job in the future,” says Palmer.

The coding class was a particular success, with almost all students attending, as was a Q&A with recent Click Start graduates, during which the students could ask questions about getting into the jobs market. Each session culminated in a virtual quiz to solidify what they’d learnt and make the experience interactive.

Palmer says the experience not only helped the students, allowing them to learn “many transferable skills” such as “customer service and basic coding” and to “increase their confidence”, it also helped Click Travel too.

“The team enjoyed it so much and learnt a lot. The young grads who put it together all worked across departments for the first time. They learnt leadership skills and worked on social media, outreach and planning.”