Work Placement Engagement Officer

onlyFE; East Midlands; On-site; GBP 26,000 - 34,000; Full time

Job summary

onlyFE is seeking a Work Placement Engagement Officer to coordinate meaningful work placements across the college. The role requires building strong employer relationships and aligning placement opportunities with curriculum needs.

You will engage employers, match students to placements, and lead Employer Advisory Boards while collaborating with multiple college departments to upscale opportunities and ensure successful placements.

Qualifications

• Experience engaging employers to secure work placements.
• Ability to work across college departments to match students to placements.
• Willingness to travel to employer sites and attend events.
• Knowledge of health and safety risk assessment processes.
• Self-starter with resilience and proactive problem solving.

Responsibilities

• Engage existing employers and increase student placements per employer.
• Build links with new employers and match students to placements.
• Arrange Employer Advisory Boards to influence curriculum.
• Collaborate with placement team and departments to upscale opportunities.
• Support learners during work placements and complete risk assessments.
• Use college systems to capture employer and student engagement data.
• Travel to conduct risk assessments and attend employer events.

Skills

Employer engagement

Risk assessment

Health & Safety

Stakeholder management

Curriculum liaison

Tools

Work placement management system

Job description

The role of Work Placement Engagement Officer is a cross-college role. The ideal candidate will have a good understanding of the work placement and a variety of industries. A key part of this role will be to ensure students complete work placements and extended or industry placements. It is a mandatory requirement for all full-time students to complete a meaningful work placement as part of their course. This role will support students in specific subject areas across the college. An essential task will be to engage existing employers to maintain their support and if feasible increase the number of students for each employer. To build links with new employers and match students to the appropriate employer and role. Increasing the number of employers supporting our students with work placements and developing strong working relationships. Arranging Employer Advisory Boards to enable employers to positively influence our curriculum will be an exciting part of the role. Working individually as well as working alongside the work placement team and other college departments to generate and upscale placement opportunities achieving the college’s work placement targets for study programme and industry placements. The role may require you to support learners in conducting work placement. You will complete health and safety training to enable you to complete risk assessment paperwork or ensure employers complete the online forms, prior to placements starting, ensuring that students are protected against health and safety risks arising from work activities, at the same time using the opportunity to develop strong links with employers and generate confidence in the college’s professional approach to health and safety. Developing good relationships with each curriculum area will be essential to ensure there is an alignment between curriculum planning and industry and study placement provision as well as collaboratively matching students to placements and upscaling to industry placements. You will contribute to students’ preparation for work placement through projects, developing and delivering resources, being passionate about students’ achievement monitoring completion of relevant and meaningful work placement objectives. You will use a range of college systems including the college central work placement management system and ensure key employer and student engagement information is captured. The post holder will be expected to be a self-starter and have a high level of resilience, as the role will involve encouraging students to see the benefits of work placement and engage employers to offer opportunities. You will be required to travel to conduct risk assessments and attend employer appointments, open evenings, employer networking events and other college sites. The role will require you to embed the college’s values; Respect, Integrity, Collaboration, Ambition and Compassion.