Work
Can online careers advice work?
The Guardian, Saturday 21 October 2011The role of employment advisers is diminishing as web-based services come to the fore, but what about the personal touch?
Margaret-Anne Mackenzie left school in April without any qualifications. "I didn't get any careers advice at school," the 16-year-old says. She's not alone – one in four 15- to 19-year-olds said the same in a survey published recently by vocational qualifications provider City & Guilds.
Anger at cuts in careers advice for young people
The Guardian Tuesday 23 August 2011Plans to make schools responsible for guidance to under-19s risk jeopardising their future and deepening deprivation, say experts.
Under proposed reforms to careers guidance, a new national service is due to launch next April, which would see teenagers no longer entitled to any face-to-face careers guidance. Instead they will be pointed to a website or told to call a helpline.
PAs in the firing line...
Community Care 6 June 2011An impending surge in the number of personal assistants is set to highlight a range of employment issues. Louise Tickle reports
For people seeking a career in personal care, the job market's looking rosy. Skills for Care's recent report on the adult social care workforce suggests that the drive to ensure service users hold their own personal budgets means there will be a five-fold increase in the number of personal assistants in England by 2025, from 168,000 in 2010 to 722,000.
Mediation in the workplace
The Guardian 31 October 2009Employment legislation now advocates the use of mediation to settle grievances. But what does the process involve and, more importantly, does it actually work?
They say compromise is the key to a happy relationship, but in the workplace it's just not that easy, as the ongoing dispute between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union proves.
Employing adults with autism
The Guardian 17 October 2009
They can be highly numerate and analytical, but only 15% of adults with autism are in full-time paid employment. So how can companies better cater for them?
At the age of 16, Robyn Steward's first taste of a career in IT seemed to augur a world of possibilities. "It was four months' work experience, supervised one-to-one by a computer technician," she recalls. "He saw that I was good and would trust me to do stuff on my own."
I should cocoa
The Guardian 3 November 2007Niladri abandoned a well-paid theatre job to launch an ethical confectionery business. But being Fairtrade accredited is not easy.
How many small children have dreamed of unwrapping a chocolate bar and finding the shiny, gold, winning ticket that would transport them to the delights of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory?
Fairtrade for fashionistas
The Guardian 3 March 2007Ethical clothing has come of age, says Louise Tickle, who meets some of the pioneers
This time last year, one of Marks & Spencer's senior textiles buyers was sweltering in a field of fluffy cotton plants in Gujarat. He was being filmed explaining how he had gone about sourcing Fairtrade cotton for a new clothing line: 12 months on and the company is the world's biggest buyer of Fairtrade cotton with a range extending from T-shirts, socks and bed linen to the famous M&S knickers.
Forget helicopters if you want to land a job in aid
The Guardian 21 February 2007You won't get a job in international aid just by picking up the phone and offering to help. In what has become a hugely competitive sector, experience is vital
Imagine a career in emergency relief or international development and what do you see? If it's an image of helicopters carrying aid workers between refugee camps or standing in lush tropical vegetation while advising on the best place to sink a borehole, you'd be both right and wrong at the same time.
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