Reflecting on 10 years of growth
Well where did that 10 years go? What started as work experience for 75 students across two locations twice a year is now a full on multi-faceted award winning programme hosting close to 1000 students a year. Initially addressing the well-recognised skills gap in the IT industry the programme quickly became a vehicle for inclusivity with programmes specifically for young women and those that identify as female or non-binary and actively including neurodiverse students.
Add to that the school workshops, developed and delivered with our partner Connectr, for years 7-9 and T Level industry placements for years 12 & 13 and the programme is virtually unrecognisable from the programme 10 years ago. We’ve learnt so much and have enjoyed learning and adapting the programme to keep it current and make it accessible to as many people as possible. But you can read all about this programme and its impact in our social impact report so I won’t go into the details of it here.
My favourite part of my job
My favourite part of my job is when I see young people who’ve been through one of the Pathways programmes walking around in the new cohort of apprentices. This makes me so proud to have been part of their journey. It was not a quick result. We had to wait several years before we had the tangible evidence of someone joining Cisco off the back of the original work experience programme. Since then though we have multiple apprentices and a couple of graduates who’ve been through one or more of the Pathways programmes. One of the lovely things about this is that they all want to give back so sign up to support the students currently taking part in the Pathways Programmes.
Full circle moments
We’ve just had one of those full circle moments with Hayley Wixey who last year was sitting in the audience as one of the students and this year was up on stage sharing her experience with students attending the work experience.
Recently I ran into Alice Hardy who attended the first programme specifically for young women back in 2016 and joined us as an apprentice just a few months later. She’s now been with Cisco 8 years and is currently working in Sales in Partner Events and Communications.
The most significant full circle moment though is Melissa Robinson who came to work experience in 2019 applied to join Cisco for the degree apprenticeship, won a place, completed her three-year degree and is now the Social Value lead on the CSR Team. She is such a great team member. Always willing to support students and share her story she was also the mentor of one of the T Level students who did their industry placement with us in 2023 who is now an apprentice with at Cisco. Like I said people who come through the programme love to give back.
Pathways alumni and CSR Team. Left to right Lubna, Laina, Jasir, Alice, Kathryn, Ben, Nickelle, Melissa and Sam
I could be here a while just naming people as in the last 5 years 13% of apprentices (21 people) have come through a Pathways programme. Not bad for a programme that had to wait years for real evidence that it’s working.
So what have we learned?
- Start small and keep evolving
- Keep up to date with the changing landscape for schools & colleges
- Always survey students to get their feedback and, where appropriate, act on that feedback
- Educate yourself about making adaptations for students with special educational needs. For example neurodiverse students – read more about that in Kathryn’s blog – Enabling Work Experience for Neurodiverse Students
- Engage lots of volunteers – lots of people giving small amounts of time has less impact on the business
- Invite your stakeholders to be part of the programme
With the government now keen to deliver 2 weeks work experience for every student if you’d like to talk to me please reach out and we’ll share more. csr-enquiries@cisco.com
Winning team in the Oct 24 WEX Dragons Den and the Dragons.
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