Thanks all - I CAN see there might be a difference, and we have taken advantage of Youth Training schemes before, when we had a young 'apprentice' for a year, who was charged with getting our website to sing and dance. As it happened he did not turn out that well, and the website is now in the hands of an extremely capable and personable couple from a Swamp in Connecticut, and the apprentice left of his own volition once it became clear to all of us that his abilities did not quite match his opinion of himself. To be totally fair, the failure of that particular experiment was partially our own fault for not understanding how much management a younger person might need.
That said, small companies can be really badly set back by such experiences, as time invested on any given individual represents a disproportionally large percentage of the total time required to run the business, and any targets not met tend to be of greater significance than would be the case for a larger company.
Given the disruption and heartache we had with M., I have since resisted repeating the exercise, but I have recently been approached by someone close to the business to see if there is anything we might be able to do for a young person with no qualifications, and yes, there IS, but it HAS to work both ways, and NO, we can't afford to pay him, and we would not be hiring anyone if he was not there.
The bottom line is I'm still not sure how far different that is for the likes of Tesco, who, while having strict shareholder driven profit margins to maintain, are still at least giving someone the work EXPERIENCE itself. I've got NO sympathy for the larger companies, but I can't see what else they can do. If the DON'T take people on such schemes, they are seen as having no social conscience. When they DO, they are exploitative.
In a way I am glad I am not a member of the Sieff family.....
That said, small companies can be really badly set back by such experiences, as time invested on any given individual represents a disproportionally large percentage of the total time required to run the business, and any targets not met tend to be of greater significance than would be the case for a larger company.
Given the disruption and heartache we had with M., I have since resisted repeating the exercise, but I have recently been approached by someone close to the business to see if there is anything we might be able to do for a young person with no qualifications, and yes, there IS, but it HAS to work both ways, and NO, we can't afford to pay him, and we would not be hiring anyone if he was not there.
The bottom line is I'm still not sure how far different that is for the likes of Tesco, who, while having strict shareholder driven profit margins to maintain, are still at least giving someone the work EXPERIENCE itself. I've got NO sympathy for the larger companies, but I can't see what else they can do. If the DON'T take people on such schemes, they are seen as having no social conscience. When they DO, they are exploitative.
In a way I am glad I am not a member of the Sieff family.....
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