ANOTHER business is helping carve out a future for young people in North East Lincolnshire.
Traditional Joiners and Carpenters, in Poplar Road, Cleethorpes, has signed up to the Grimsby Telegraph campaign and agreed to take on two people for a week's work experience placement.
Your Life: Your Future wants to give 200 people a taste of working life to show them the benefits and help remove any barriers associated with the world of employment.
Director Steve Dixon gained his job through day release at school and has employed several of his own employees through work experience.
He said: "I am 100 per cent behind work experience and anything that supports and promotes it.
"Four out of the nine people who work here have come through work experience.
"I also believe that they are four of the best joiners in the area.
"I think that the country is falling behind because we are not getting young blood into the work place.
"I would rather train someone from scratch to fit what I am looking for but I also like to see how they work – and coming in to do a bit of experience is great for that.
"Our business has been going for about 15 years and, in that time, work experience has worked time and time again.
"What I look for is initiative and a willingness to clean up and make tea because the basics are essential.
"Anyone that comes to us for a taster will gain a real insight into the business."
For some employees, going on work experience was the best thing they had ever done.
Bench joiner Jarred Grimble, 21, from Cleethorpes, said: "I came on work experience here for two weeks and I managed to impress the boss and I asked if they took apprentices on.
"They said they did and I actually started the day after I left school. If I had not come on work experience, I wouldn't be in the job.
"It has set me up for life and is the best thing I have done.
"Anyone going on work experience should try as hard as possible and learn what you can because you never know where it might lead."
Join up
Get involved in the Your Life: Your Future campaign. If you can offer a work placement, e-mail dan.russell@gsmg.co.uk or call him on 01472 372236.
Editor's Comment IT is great that an increasing number of local companies are now joining in with our Your Life: Your Future work experience campaign. Young people and students need hands-on experience of what life in a working environment is like. Those who get this, either by their own persistence, or with help, have a far greater understanding of what the 'real world' is about – and the more they can get, the better. Examination success is required in what is an increasingly competitive jobs market – of that, there is no doubt. However a well rounded individual is one who has the social skills and the work ethic to match. Put some successful, high achieving students into a work place, and they may well be completely out of their depth. Comment on this story below