Thomas Franks and Adviza’s Positive Destinations project: an interview with Holly Norrington.

Positive Destinations is an employability programme that helps students at risk of NEET get closer to employment. It uses employer encounters to inspire and enthuse students about the many opportunities in the world of work, and the careers they may not otherwise know about.

Like all employability programmes it relies on productive partnerships between Adviza and local employers. So we were delighted that one of our project partners was ethical caterer Thomas Franks, which provides freshly-cooked, quality food for businesses, head offices, schools and colleges.

With its commitment to sustainability, local sourcing and above all, the development of staff, Thomas Franks was an ideal choice of employer to participate in Positive Destinations. Holly Norrington, Head of HR at the company, tells us about her experience of the programme and what it meant to her and the business. A big thank you to Holly for her time and work on the project, and to the team at Thomas Franks. 

Holly, how did Thomas Franks come to be involved in Positive Destinations? 

Sandra approached me and said she was looking to partner with colleges and schools to encourage young people to do work experience with organisations like ours. I was delighted

I met Sandra Reynolds from Adviza at a conference where I was speaking about our staff development initiatives. The Thomas Franks team is really passionate about upskilling our staff and supporting them to grow into different roles across the business, whether that’s a change of direction in their career, progressing from kitchen roles to management and so on.

Our Managing Director started in a junior role in hospitality fifteen years ago, so we love to develop people who have a drive for the business and want to move forward. To that end, I’m always keen to ensure we have apprenticeships and opportunities for young people. 

Sandra approached me and said she was looking to partner with colleges and schools to encourage young people to do work experience with organisations like ours. I was delighted; hospitality can provide great careers but has become overlooked and a bit under-resourced in the post-COVID, post-Brexit world. Hospitality is a great option for young people who might not want to pursue standard academic careers; it’s energetic, fun, fast-paced, inclusive, never dull and appeals to a diverse range of people. 

And there’s still passion for catering out there. In the last couple of years we’ve had two work experience students who cleverly managed to balance work experience and school; one does a day of work experience with us each month, so that his two weeks of work experience, including time at our Chef Academy, are spread throughout the year. 

What form did your participation in Positive Destinations take? 

Sandra told me she was arranging employee encounters in two parts: a taster day at Meadowbrook College, and work experience with options for different timings. We chose the week before the taster day, and Sandra and I organised suitable placements at Thomas Franks sites for a number of students based on location. They included Begbroke College near Oxford and a business location in Banbury with a lovely, open café-restaurant and kitchen—in all cases, working with our chefs and catering teams.

The students’ work experience was for two hours, which is perfect in a catering context: our teams can be as small as four or five people who have to prepare and make lunch for customers, and two hours allows a student to see us working with recipes, setting up counters and so on. It’s enough time to provide a good window into the catering profession. 

At the taster day we worked with two groups of students in the morning and two in the afternoon for two hours at a time. One of the exercises was to put in order the attributes and transferrable skills most valued by employers—things like being on time, a positive attitude, passion—and talking through those in smaller groups.

We also talked through the career advice we’d give to ourselves at sixteen; I found it really interesting listening to other employers here, because we had a real mix of backgrounds.  The students had an opportunity to ask us questions about our careers and how we got into them. 

What would you say to yourself at sixteen? We have to ask! 

Speak up a bit more. I was pretty quiet, but everyone has something to contribute, which is something we really believe in at Thomas Franks. Even if nothing comes of your ideas or your opinions first time, keep plugging away. Confidence can get you quite far; summon that within yourself and you can propel yourself forward and put your name in the ring for opportunities. If you can develop confidence, it helps people to see what you can do.

How did your students get on with their work placements at Thomas Franks?  

The students got stuck in, which just shows what a great opportunity one-to-one environments provide for young adults to enter the world of work

All of the placements went really well, to the extent that we had delighted, really positive feedback from our chefs who couldn’t have been more enthusiastic. The students got stuck in, which just shows what a great opportunity one-to-one environments provide for young adults to enter the world of work and connect with people like them—and how catering and hospitality can be perfect for some. They’re not sat at a desk, it’s a difference kind of space entirely to be in, and they can stand beside our chefs and see for themselves how catering works, and learn on the job.

What makes me especially happy is that the students’ time with us might have sparked a desire within those students to get into hospitality. If it’s with us then that’s fantastic, but if it’s with someone else I will still be delighted that we sparked joy in someone. 

The taster day at Meadowbrook College was great, too. We did some breakout sessions which helped the students to overcome any hesitancy about speaking in larger groups, and I could see over the course of the session that they were engaging more and more. I asked for their input into our conversations, but didn’t pressure them into it—if they just wanted to listen they could still take a lot away from the session. They were quite keen to hear what we were looking for in employees, too; they had their own questions. 

It would be interesting to go into that a bit! What qualities are you looking for in new starters? 

We want people who are keen to engage and learn. I don’t mind if you can’t cook a bread sauce right now; we can teach you that. But if you have the right attitude and want to learn, that’s a great start.

You’ll hear it everywhere, but a positive, can-do attitude is so important, and problem-solving skills are always useful to bring to work. Instead of just highlighting an issue, can you bring solutions to the table? 

So don’t ever stop trying to be creative, don’t underestimate yourself or think you’re too young or new to have a useful opinion.

As I said earlier, for young people with little experience, they might not get it right first time, but if they try to think of ways forward, they will get there. So don’t ever stop trying to be creative, don’t underestimate yourself or think you’re too young or new to have a useful opinion. You are a fresh pair of eyes and you can bring an important, alternative perspective that more established employees might not have because they’re too blinkered by conventional ways of thinking. Speak up – put yourself forward. 

Also, though I’m not a clock-watcher, I believe in respecting my colleagues’ time, for example by being on time for meetings. 

Taking the taster day and work experience as a whole, how do you think these sessions will help young people?  

Programmes like Positive Destinations help students to have an open mind about the path they set out for themselves.

I love that employer encounters can open students’ minds to options they might not have otherwise considered. I am working in HR now, and I knew nothing whatsoever about the profession when I was sixteen. Programmes like Positive Destinations help students to have an open mind about the path they set out for themselves. You may well change course in your early life, and at any point. And there are skills that you can bring across to other opportunities. In my case, HR is everywhere, but how was I to know that all businesses need HR when I was at school? At the taster day, it was interesting to hear employers from, say, the construction industry talk about this too, with regards to their own careers.

Any final career advice for young people reading this?  

Yes, I’d say don’t be too quick to decide that you can’t do something, which is all too easy to do when you’re young and inexperienced about the realities of what a job might require.

For example, if you’re not brilliant at maths and you see an online advert for an Operations Manager role that involves some budgeting, you could be put off operations jobs forever. But that would be wrong! You may well be good enough for the kind of maths required in that career. Pythagoras’s Theorem is not the same as a living, breathing budget—but you don’t know that when you’re sixteen. When we talk to students, it’s important for adults with years of professional experience to remember what they were like at fifteen or sixteen or seventeen; there are so many things on their minds that we have long since forgotten about. 

 

A big thank you to Holly and the team at Thomas Franks for being a fantastic and valuable programme partner to Positive Destinations, and for this interview.

Read more about our Positive Destinations project.

 

23rd April 2024