Explainer: For employers: how Unifrog helps you manage work experience placements

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Best practice guides about work experience placements for employers

Our best practice guides for everything to do with Placements can be accessed by anyone (no Unifrog login needed) at the following link: https://www.unifrog.org/placement/guides

Below is an overview of what employers need to know about the Unifrog Placements tool.

What is the Placements tool?

The Unifrog Placements tool is a series of forms that help schools and colleges manage the admin for work experience. 

To organise one placement there are seven forms in total, with each one needing to be filled in consecutively (except for the Employer review form and the Student reflection form, which can be completed in any order after the placement ends):

1. Student initial form
2. Employer initial form
3. Parent/guardian agreement
4. Permission
5. Check-in
6. Employer review
7. Student reflection

Once one person completes their form, the next person in the process is automatically notified by email.

Employers who are hosting placements via the Unifrog Placements tool don't have their own Unifrog login. Their job is just to fill in the Employer initial form ahead of the placement, and the Employer review form after it, both of which they receive by email.

 

How does the process start?

Normally the process begins with the student agreeing with the employer for the placement to happen. 

Once the employer has agreed to host the placement, the student logs the placement on Unifrog by filling in the Student initial form.

Once the student has done this, the employer is automatically sent an email, inviting them to complete the Employer initial form. The email includes a direct link to the form.

 

The Employer initial form

In a nutshell

The Employer initial form asks the employer basic details about the placement and their job role. It also asks questions recommended by the Health & Safety Executive, and by the Keeping Children Safe in Education Statutory Guidance, to do with employer's Employers' liability insurance, Risk Assessment, and Health & Safety policy.

Here is more detail:

Employers' liability insurance

If the employer has Employers' liability insurance, the form asks them to upload a copy of the insurance certificate. 

If the insurance expires before the placement ends, the platform will ask the employer to upload the new certificate when the existing one expires, and the system will automatically send them a reminder just before the insurance expires.

If the employer is exempt from needing Employers' liability insurance (for example, they are a sole trader, or the employer's organisation is the NHS), they can confirm this instead.

Risk Assessment and Health & Safety policy

If an employer has 5 or more employees, by UK law they must write down their Risk Assessment and Health & Safety policy. If the employer has fewer than 5 employees (for example, they are a sole trader) the law does not oblige them to write anything down, though they must still have thought through a Risk Assessment and Health & Safety policy.

The Employer initial form asks the employer to upload a Risk Assessment and Health & Safety policy if any of these apply:

• This is the first time they have hosted a placement
• The workplace is above low risk
• The student has said they have special needs, illnesses, medical conditions, allergies or injuries that might affect the placement.

Out of an abundance of caution, we ask this even if the employer has fewer than 5 employees (and so isn't obliged by law to have written down these documents). 

To help, there are templates for Risk Assessments and Health & Safety policies in our Legals explained guide.

Uploading documents

If the employer has problems uploading documents into the Employer initial form, they can use the ‘Problem uploading’ function to explain why. It necessary, they can then email the relevant documents to the placement coordinator.

Placements contacts database

In the Employer review form the employer is also asked if they'd like to join Unifrog's Placements contacts database. This is a Unifrog-wide database of people who are interested in hosting students for:

• In person work placements
• In person work placements lasting 20 days or more
• Virtual placements
• Apprenticeships
• Other opportunities (like assemblies or mentoring)

There are currently more than 40,000 people in the database, with more people joining every day. Teachers can search the database and can ask the people on it if they are up for hosting work experience for their students. We make sure that employers are not inundated with requests, and employers can leave it at any time.
 

Remembering what an employer last entered and uploaded in the Employer initial form

If an employer has completed an Employer initial form within the last 540 days, the system remembers what they last entered into the form, including any documents they previously uploaded. They can choose to edit this information, and replace the remembered documents. 

More details about the legals and documents needed for placements

For more information on safeguarding and the legals behind placements, see our guide Placements: the legals explained. This guide includes templates for Risk Assessments and Health & Safety policies.

What happens after the Employer initial form is completed?

• Before the placement

Once the employer submits the Employer initial form:

• The parent completes the Parent/guardian agreement, and then 
   
• The Placement coordinator completes the Permission form.

When these forms are finished, the student, the parent/guardian, the placement coordinator and the employer receive an automated email confirming that the placement is going ahead!

The system also emails each party a reminder 7 days before the placement start date.
 

• After the placement
   

  • Employer review form
    
    The morning after the placement ends (or a month after the placement's start date for placements that are marked as ‘ongoing’ instead of being given an end date), the employer receives another email, asking them to complete the Employer review form:
     
    • The Employer review form lets the employer share feedback about the placement. The student and placement coordinator can see the feedback that the employer gives in this form, but the parent/guardian cannot.
       
    • In the form the employer is asked if they would be up for hosting another student from the same school/college, and if so, whether they are interested in hosting a student for a virtual placement, for an in person placement, or for both. Their answer to this question is shown to teachers at the relevant school/college in a download called ‘CSV of placements contacts (only includes people that have hosted students at your school)’ that's available via the Advanced view of the Manage page.
       
    • The employer is also asked again about whether they want to be in the Unifrog-wide Placements contacts database.
       
  • Student reflection form
    
    After the placement, at the same time as the employer is sent the Employer review form, the student is sent the Student reflection form. The employer cannot see what the student enters in this form (amongst other reasons for this approach, this encourages the student to be candid). Here are the questions in the Student reflection form:
     
    • One thing you learnt through doing the placement
       
    • What you did during the placement of which you're most proud
       
    • How doing the placement impacted on your plans for the future
       
    • Were your learning goals met?
       
    • How likely is it that you would recommend this placement to a friend? 
      (Select a number between 0 and 10, with 0 being ‘Not at all likely’, and 10 being 'Extremely likely).
       
    • What could have been improved about the placement?