At Global, we believe that educating students on the importance of fire safety is part of our responsibility for social value. At our Nottingham office, we’re often joined by work experience students who gain an insight into the daily functioning of the business by working across multiple departments, and leave having developed some new transferrable skills. George Kennington, a year 12 student from Toot Hill Sixth Form College recently completed work experience at Global, and this is what he learnt about the business throughout the week.

Understanding Sales & Marketing

“I started the week at Global with the sales and marketing team, and they introduced me to the business and took me on a tour of the building, explaining each department as we went round. I got to experience a meeting for the first time to see what goes on in the department, and saw the variety of work they do. One of the main tasks is looking after the websites, and they outlined their goals for it; including how they want the site to be at the top of Google when words related to the website are searched. By using Google Analytics, we worked out how to encourage more engagement, and I read through the site to see the rebranding they went through, and who their competitors are.

Eloise explained her role to me and the work that is done around the office and how she organises sales meetings. She also showed me the CRM system, which is used to organise all their data and manage their sales process.

More than just numbers

Working with Sam and Victoria in Finance opened my eyes to how accounts and finance is incredibly important to the workplace because they keep track of revenue, show profits, and pay expenses to the staff on the road. They showed me how they use their accounting software to organise all the money coming in and out of the business, how they pay employees, and I got to organise some of the expense reports. Victoria also showed me graphs, how she makes them, and explained why they are made to illustrate all the money that had gone through the business in a more concise way.

Keeping vehicles safe

The company has around 56 vehicles and I learnt how they must all be kept in good condition and safe for the employees to use. I also learnt how accounts pay for parking and the added difficulties of working in London, like high emission zones. They organise all the travel needed for the company, including tickets for trains and petrol cards to make travel easier for all the employees.

Working with clients

Whilst working in the Contracts team, I learnt about how they make contact with clients and ensure the work is being done in the correct way and following the contract’s requirements. This included sharing images to show the work is being completed to the correct standards.

I was shown how they create an organised plan for each site and route for each contract to make movement for the employees easier. They made folders to keep track of what’s going on and ensure health and safety is being followed to make employees safe, and to complete the job properly.

Each month, all the Contract Managers meet to discuss what resource they’ll be using, and at what point during that month. It is quite a busy meeting because sometimes everyone wants specific people on a project, especially when some people have large contracts and need lots of people which means it needs organisation and compromise.

Understanding external walls

I got taught about a variety of different issues that the company has to fix when buildings are incorrectly built when it comes to fire safety. I actually found out that your building could be burning but you don’t actually know because it’s in the gaps in the walls and climbing up the building and burning. If the surveys are not done properly or are incorrect, it can endanger the building. The team will recommend ways to improve the safety of the building, making the building safer for residents.

They explained the different things that may slow burning and stop it, or an alert, such as a fire alarm. I also learnt about the materials used to fill gaps in walls to slow fires to keep the building up to standard and not get fines.

Summary

Over the week, I’ve really enjoyed being at Global. Every employee has been kind and was so understanding when I needed to leave early on one day, and when I had a driving lesson.

I’ve learnt about every department in the business, how they interact, and how they are all important to how everything functions. As well as gaining an understanding of how a business operates, I’ve learnt some tips on how I can schedule my work and make myself a lot more efficient. It’s been great to learn about the ins and outs of Global, it was a lot of fun, and the office environment made for a great work experience.”