Audiences North East case study

Company background

Audiences North East works with the north east region’s cultural sector to understand, reach, sustain and develop audiences. We operate a one year paid placement scheme for a student from Northumbria University’s marketing degree courses.

Total number of employees

Three

Operational countries

UK

Challenge

After two years of operation we realised we needed to restructure to accommodate how the company’s activities were changing and growing. We knew we needed extra resources to assist with the ongoing operation of our website and with event management and audience research and we just couldn’t achieve this with our existing structure. As a low risk option we decided to try out Northumbria University’s placement scheme which we already knew about and which has a very proactive placement office. We thought that if it didn’t work out we could always go back to the drawing board and recruit a permanent member of staff.

Name of work experience scheme 

12-month paid placement as marketing assistant

Name of person responsible for scheme                     

Alison O’Hara 

Steps to implementation

1. Identify need, draft budget and gain Board approval.
2. Draft application pack.
3. Advertise placement with Northumbria University.
4. Shortlist job applications, interview, appoint candidate and take up references.
5. Liaise with student up to start date.

Two-week handover between previous student and new student using induction checklist.

Key targets set for student ensuring that their minds are ‘stretched’ with appropriate tasks. The work programme includes: office administration, audience research, event management and website content provision. Monthly progress meetings between student and CEO ensuring that their work-based portfolio is being prepared; weekly team meetings; quarterly business planning meetings; half-yearly appraisal and exit interview. Continual on-the-job training together with attendance at more formal training through our own professional development workshops created for our corporate members. Annual review of placement process between Marketing Manager and CEO to review whether changes need to be made to following year’s programme.

Benefits

• Improved the quality of work. Prior to our placement we had hired casual staff for carrying out face-to-face interviews with audiences and we found that they could be unreliable. With our placement student we can be sure that a high quality of interviewing is carried out. As our student usually carries out a lot of the resulting data analysis it is in their interest to ensure that interviews are carried out efficiently and effectively. Word of mouth in the cultural sector has spread about the quality of our audience research, so much so that we have been continuously employed in audience research for clients for the past 18 months.
• Gaining a different perspective. We tend to operate in a cocoon of seasoned audience and marketing professionals. Having a placement student has enabled us to look at the cultural sector with fresh eyes. We often test out ideas on our student to ensure we’re hitting the mark. 
• Knowing that we are contributing to the cultural sector in the region. The cultural sector is a small world, particularly in the north east. Whilst we have limited financial resources to effect change in the region, what we do have is knowledge and by operating a placement scheme we are ensuring that potentially one of the cultural sector organisations in the north east is getting a very well trained employee.

Results

• Reduced recruitment costs – average recruitment advert with regional press is c£1,500, whereas it is free to advertise with Northumbria University placement office. 
• Better service delivery to our corporate members – we’re now seen to be very proactive with our corporate members, ensuring that they really do benefit from all aspects of our membership scheme, e.g., chasing them for competition offers, ensuring that all members receive coverage on our website, liaising with our bloggers and forwarding their comments to our members. 
• Becoming an employer of choice – word has got out of the quality and range of experience that we can offer. We were really proud to hear recently on the cultural grapevine that we were thought to be a 'fantastic opportunity' for someone wanting to start out in the cultural sector.

Lessons learnt  

We had unrealistic expectations early on about students’ office skills and it really was back to basics e.g.,  how to answer the phone, how a photocopier works, how to order stationery. We know this now and make sure that our induction checklist covers all the basics. Each student is different – our first student was very good at data analysis, our second student is very good at copywriting and event management. No two students are the same and bring completely different skills and personalities. Our application pack was too specific in terms of skills – all that we actually needed was attention to detail, good grammar and an interest in the cultural sector. We have since altered the essential and desirable skills in the job application pack.        

Future plans  

We intend to offer two placements in 2010 – one more audience research focused and one more marketing focused.                                                         

Key tips

• Recruit early – the really good students get the pick of the placements early on and then students get drawn into exam revision from May onwards.
• Provide them with opportunities to shine in front of other prospective employers so that the placement isn’t just about the direct skills they learn from the host organisation but also about making contacts in the wider employment arena.