Guidant partners with Whizz-Kidz to offer George a work placement

By Charlotte Woodward, Director of People Services

As a Disability Confident Leader, we’re always keen to welcome disabled talent to Guidant Global and we’ve recently partnered with the charity Whizz-Kidz to offer a young disabled person a two-week work placement. 

Whizz-Kidz matched us with George, who is in his second year of studying towards a Business Studies degree and who also happens to be a wheelchair user. George has proven to be a valuable addition to our direct sourcing team over the past few weeks - getting stuck into his recruitment role, sourcing candidates and providing admin and projects support. Lauren Sewell who has been managing George during his time with us said, "George has come here to learn and has been 100% committed to every task we’ve given him. So much so that we’ve extended his placement into a temporary contract beyond his initial placement. I’d definitely encourage other employers to provide similar opportunities to young disabled people. We play a vital role in supporting individuals to become confident and independent young adults and shouldn’t under-estimate the difference something like a work placement can make to a person’s long-term job prospects."

We also asked George to provide us a summary of his time with #TeamGuidant and what he’s personally taken from it: 

Socialising

Over the time I have been at Guidant the people have been lovely and are hard-working and welcoming. It only took a couple of days before I felt part of the team which in my case is important going forward. I'm sure as I progress socialising out of working hours will become something I do with greater frequency.

My future

Guidant has given me a massive confidence boost with regards to being able to effectively do a job and made me feel confident that I can cultivate a career at some point in the future. Because of this I am extremely grateful to all those involved both at Guidant and Whizz-Kidz. I would say I learned a great deal from my experience and the main thing that I have taken from it is I now know that I can operate in a pressured working environment with responsibilities and handle everything that comes with that situation with effectiveness and give a good account of myself. The experience has also given me an idea of what I might want to do in my early working years so for that I'm extremely grateful to the team for their assistance. 

In terms of skills that I believe I've gained I would say that the outstanding improvements come in my reaction to consistent pressure. I have never before been under that particular type of pressure and being exposed to that, so it has tested me, but I know that I can operate very well in in the current environment and this is a very good indicator for my future.

Wellbeing

Guidant do a very good job in terms of promoting the small things that contribute to a healthy employee, this includes making sure that I make effective use of my lunch hour. This is important as I am known to work through my lunch hour which is necessary sometimes, but may not always be an effective use of my time terms of managing fatigue. Further to this I find that they remind all employees to take regular breaks given that all the work is computer-based and there is a need to reinforce this as we as a team are required to call candidates and if we were to shy away from the opportunity to leave our desks once in a while this could affect our ability to consistently complete a vital part of our job well.

What did you enjoy the most?

I have really enjoyed every single second that I have been fortunate enough to spend at Guidant. It is a lovely organisation and I really appreciate them throwing me in at the deep end and getting me to start working and assist on the projects from only my second day. This allowed me to quickly learn one of the main systems and now I am well practiced in this area and very happy to do it. I have enjoyed everything that I've been asked to do it has been a brilliant experience and I'm very pleased to have been asked back to further support to the project. I am not particularly sure what role I would choose if I have the opportunity however the work I've been doing at Guidant has complimented my abilities which include great interpersonal skills and also a love of research and overall knowledge gain. The first two areas are directly related to my position currently at Guidant, so that is a happy coincidence. 

If you would like to offer a young person like George a work-placement opportunity, please visit www.whizz-kidz.org.uk