Putting heart into traineeship placements
We spoke to Sarah Roach, who together with Graham are the owners of Game On Retro, a gaming café in Stockton-On-Tees. They have been working with us and providing work experience placements for trainees for four years.
Our structured traineeship programmes provide one-to-one support and group work for young people, often for individuals with complex barriers. Sarah and Graham provide placements which provide young people with the opportunity to gain and practice skills, gain confidence and become independent – setting them up for their future.
Tell us about Game On Retro
We are a small, independently run gaming café where people can come in and buy, or play, a wide variety of retro computer games, card games and board games whilst enjoying a drink and bite to eat.
We have traditional loose leaf teas, specialty flavoured coffees and some really indulgent hot chocolates.
Why did you start providing a work experience placement for trainees?
Where we are located on the high street, we see a lot of youths strolling around, throwing traffic cones, firing fireworks – helping them get life skills is one of the main motivators for us. We get the help, but we also get the opportunity to make a difference.
Trainees provide a fresh perspective on business and they can be really helpful with events, window displays, we use them to bounce ideas off as we’re a different generation so what we would consider cool or entertaining isn’t necessarily what they would.
It gives them focus – prior to Ixion, they have the wrong focus, they’re putting too much emphasis on hanging out with the friends they made as kids. For example, friends I’ve made outside of school are the ones that I spend more time with, I’m not the same person I was as a child. Through experiences in the workplace, you develop new friendships, people with similar mindsets – those are the people you hold close for much longer than childhood friends, you move on from that childish friendship into something that represents who you are as a person. The trainees are never going to change their circumstances or make friends by hanging out with people at bus stops. People with qualifications don’t sit on street corners causing trouble, generally speaking.
We want the trainees to have fun, but it’s also about changing their direction, from some with backgrounds of no discipline and being destructive, setting them on a new path – helping them when they need help, providing them with role models when before they might not have had any.
"Trainees provide a fresh perspective on business and they can be really helpful."
What skills do the trainees develop?
Trainees develop customer service skills, communication skills from talking to people, face-to-face interaction, and problem solving – they need to find answers to customers’ questions for one. For me it’s behaviour I learned at school but trainees didn’t, on account of not going or not feeling comfortable so they learn it here and at Ixion in the classrooms. Teamwork is another skill they develop, learning to work with people outside of their friendship group. We’ll teach trainees how to do something gradually in the café – for example, we’ll be working together and I’ll do half and they’ll do the other half – it might be the food and drink order or keeping the counters and tables clean. Working together I know what they’re supposed to be doing and if it’s been done to the best of their ability.
As soon as they’ve learnt how to do something in the café, like make a specific type of coffee, I’ll order it, they bring it over, we discuss it. For example a latte macchiato: It’s a layering of milk, coffee, foam, and layers in between caused by pouring the coffee through the milk. It might not sound much but it’s about developing the skill set and taking pride in your work. The first latte is generally always an absolute nightmare, at the end of it it’s pristine, and it’s that continual practice and reinforcement, combined with praise and showing that we care (and I have high standards when it comes to making coffee!) – and then we get that smug smile from the trainee and it’s looking gorgeous and they know they’ve done well and it’s an achievement and a confidence-booster. It’s the tiny successes, learning to do something and then we can build on that. We’ll take a photo at the beginning and we can say look, you’ve gone from this to this.
"It’s about developing the skill set and taking pride in your work."
How do you measure their progress?
While they’re in here doing their placement, some are absolutely silent, so we try to bring them out of their shells. Others are noisy as anything, super chatty and really engaging and get on with everything, learning and trying. We teach them how to do new things and can see their progress that way. The quiet ones – they’ll have this one moment of blinding brilliance and it’s that one moment that changes them. It’s that one moment we wait for.
We speak to Naz Anwar and Adam Waite at Ixion a lot too, when they do the reviews, and as we’re chatting we ask them ‘what changes have you guys seen?’. I only ever see the development of one side, so we get updates from class, the changes that Adam and Naz are dealing with – it’s their opinion that makes a difference, getting that development feedback as it’s a different environment.
"They’ll have this one moment of blinding brilliance and it’s that one moment that changes them."
What’s the biggest change you see in the trainees on their placement?
Some we see a change of being chatty and communicative with just us, to being chatty with everyone. We can see that confidence growing – as they get more comfortable with us the interactions are less serious, there’s a lot of laughing and chatting with us and customers – it’s personal experience rather than experience in a classroom setting and this what builds their confidence.
With Adam and Naz at Ixion, that’s the classroom element – what we do is give them that interaction with the general public, conversation and implementing new skills. If you find a conversation too stringent you’ll walk away, if you enjoy having a conversation with someone, it’s friendly and relaxed – 99% of the time that’s what keeps people coming back. It doesn’t work for every situation, but it’s how we communicate with our customers.
We get a lot of customers with social anxiety issues, people on the spectrum, what we do is a gaming café and it’s difficult for those sorts of people to remove themselves from their consoles and comfortable spaces and walk into the world as it’s the generation who live life in front of a screen, so trainees interacting with our customers is fantastic to see.
When a group of trainees start, you can see the difference between where they are in the programme and the development of people from week to week. The changes are consistent. You can tell what they’ve been studying at Ixion, say if it’s income and expenditure or health and food, they’ll come in one day looking at things slightly differently – they won’t throw their money away on chocolate bars and crisps. So we can plot where they are on the programme – it’s not the same for everyone, but it does impact a lot of them!
"You can see the difference between where they are in the programme."
What impact does it have on the trainee and their life?
They’re moving on as a person; developing, growing, and their friends are still stuck in the same situation. If you’re strong enough to move away from that it’s really, really rewarding to see – you can see they are still friends with the same people but they’re better a version of themselves, and working and being put into a placement and the effort that has been put in with them – it’s the bolstering that makes such a massive difference.
Quite a fair amount have gone back into education, a couple have even left part-way through onto other things. I’m a massive advocate of education so I’m always saying how supremely important it is – that’s the drive for me. Graham usually leans more towards the work side, his conversations usually entail “think about this opportunity and that option, what about doing an apprenticeship” and so on. If it’s suitable I’ll try and get them back into education, to get a qualification. Now, with anything less than a degree, you’re lucky if you even get looked at. A lot of people are leaving school before they get to that point, before they even do A-Levels.
Our trainees generally come back quite regularly to visit, we build relationships with the people we place and encourage them to keep us updated. Our first transgender trainee we ever had still comes in two or three times a week and he’s a friend and we know this is a safe place for him and we pride ourselves on that.
"They’re moving on as a person; developing, growing ... quite a fair amount have gone back into education"
What advice would you give to prospective businesses looking to hire a trainee?
It definitely depends on the type of person you hire and possibly the area you’re in, but the young people we work with are usually quite excellent – we work with Ixion and tend to take on the young people that have more barriers than the average young person. We find out what they want to achieve and work with them, which for us is always the first step. As soon as you start pushing them and asking them what they want you’ll start to get somewhere – the minute you start trying to dictate is the minute you’ve lost them. So work with them.
Our first day is us sitting with them at the back, we have a private conversation and we’ll ask them “what is it that you struggle with, what experience do you have, what do you want to get from this” and so on. At first they’ll say what you want to hear, and then the rest of the day we prod, asking them what it is they want, is this want you need, what do you actually struggle with, and so on. You push, just gentle pressure to get them to respond openly, as they’re not going to be honest – they’re terrified! It’s a high-stress situation and they don’t want to embarrass themselves, so they’re not always 100% honest with you. Once you really see where they want to be and what they want, from there you can move on. You can’t just take what they say at face value, and they can get themselves into a state and it’s stressful for them – so you need to be willing to put the effort in. Some of the young people aren’t used to having someone that takes an interest or cares – so it can take a little getting used to. Once you’ve passed this stage, it is very much worth it.
All traineeship costs are met by the Government and cover a range of sectors. As an employer you can integrate traineeships into your recruitment strategy with bespoke programmes.