Sainsbury's: Careers in Construction - work experience for girls at Key Stage 4

The business case

Sainsbury's is one of the country's leading food retailers in the UK. The Company currently operates 355 supermarkets, 10 Savacentre Hypermarkets, 83 Homebase House and Garden Centres and 214 newly acquired Texas Homecare Stores. It employs over 100,000 staff of whom approximately two thirds are women. 39% of the total management structure are women. As a company, Sainsbury's views this programme as providing two major benefits to the business:

·future resourcing - by encouraging girls to consider entering non-traditional areas of employment, the company is increasing the number of candidates from which it can recruit in the future.

·community relations - by establishing strong relationships in the local community the company is able to maintain and enhance its position as a major retailer in the area.

Project Description

This project grew out of an initial commitment by Sainsbury's to the `Take Our Daughters to Work' programme. As a result of the success of that initiative company-wide, managers agreed that there would be benefits to the company and pupils in establishing closer and more long-term links with local schools.

Accordingly, a supermarket site being developed at Kidderminster was designated the `prototype' for a week-long work experience programme. Local schools were approached and six girls from three schools were invited to take part. Sainsbury's developed a structured programme of activities for the girls, giving them experience of a wide range of jobs and functions on site. These included:

seminar-based sessions on activities such as town planning and the architect's role.
attending site meetings and contractors' meetings.
work shadowing.
on site tasks such as materials testing, levels survey, brickwork and traffic survey.

As far as possible, the activities were linked to the National Curriculum and aspects of GNVQ courses.

Feedback from the schools involved indicated that the girls now have a much greater understanding of the range of careers available in construction, but, almost as important, have developed their self confidence as a result of the work experience.

Special features

This scheme involved headteachers and staff at local schools and site contractors and grew out of the `Take Our Daughters to Work' programme. It features Aim High pathway 6 (Work experience) and 8 (Careers).

Contact

Janet Cameron, Personnel Policy Manager, Sainsbury's, Stamford House, Stamford Street, London, SE1 9LL. Tel 0171 921 6155

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