Balfour Beatty WorkPlace, London

Christine Fleet, Management Trainee

This summer, Balfour Beatty WorkPlace (BBW) welcomed two Career Academy student interns, Ugur and Charlie from Highbury Grove School in London. We were all very impressed with the contributions both students made to our business.

Ugur was based in our contract office and played an important role in the preparation for the handover of our first Private Finance Initiative school. He was responsible for producing site log books and for compiling health and safety procedures and environmental policies. He also got a taste of life onsite, which gave him an insight into the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) project and how each Balfour Beatty operating company contributes to the delivery of the project. This provided a great opportunity for both our interns to work together on assignments and develop their team-building skills. 

Most of Charlie's time was allocated to onsite work at the four schools, which comprise phase one of the BSF project. Charlie assisted with monitoring tasks being undertaken and created a library of images which highlighted issues and also points of interest.  His images were used during formal reviews with the Construction Joint Venture and Transform Islington. Because of this, Charlie developed a good understanding of the project as a whole. To make sure that he had a well-rounded experience, he was also given the chance to see the administrative side of our services during sessions in the contract office.

It was great to see how each student grew in confidence as they became more familiar with the team and the project. Both students took into account observations raised during their first appraisal and made sure that they acted on them. Their second review showed definite improvement, which revealed a great willingness to learn. They both demonstrated a positive attitude and commitment to all the tasks they were given. As a result, they soon became a fully integrated part of our team, rather than just interns working alongside us. This was fantastic, as it's probably fair to say that, as a team, we were unsure what level of performance we should expect. 

The whole team found the internship a positive experience. In particular Tom Fenney, our Clerk of Works, enjoyed supervising two keen students, to whom he was able to pass on his many experiences, expertise and his passion for his work.

As a thank you to Charlie and Ugur, we arranged an evening bowling. I know the BBW team all had a fantastic time, even if we were beaten rather convincingly by the students!

The performance of both students surpassed our expectations to such an extent that we are eager to offer Career Academy internships in the future. We would recommend the programme to all employers, as long as they are prepared to invest in their interns. The more you put in, the more you'll get out of them.

We found that a good way of helping our students to engage fully with their tasks and encourage them to give 100% was to ensure that they recognised the importance of the work they were doing and felt valued. The result was that they made a real contribution to our work in the contract office and the school we recently handed over.

The Career Academy programme has certainly opened our eyes to the many benefits an intern can bring to our business. We are very much looking forward to two more students joining us next year for what I am sure will be another successful partnership.