With just a few weeks to go until the end of term, we are
beginning to get in to festive mood in the Jobshop.
From the beginning of December we
will be joined by MacDougall, our four legged friend who only joins us at this
time each year. MacDougall, suitably
dressed for the season, will be appearing in the Jobshop and at other far flung
locations around campus over the next month – look out for him, and please stop
and say hello if you are passing by!
When planning MacDougall’s workload, it got us thinking
about the difference between volunteering and paid work and whether MacDougall
would be regarded as a volunteer or a worker?
Despite much discussion, articles and media exposes there is still much controversy about unpaid
internships and ‘voluntary’ positions where there is a requirement to work a
certain number of hours, at certain times etc
The Jobshop operates a strict policy, whereby we will only
advertise unpaid opportunities of up to 2 weeks (excepting those limited categories of vacancies which are exempt from paying the National Minimum
Wage), however this does sometimes cause us some headaches! From time to time opportunities arise which
appear to offer really good experience but they are unpaid and don’t fit in
with our guidelines for advertising on myVacancies. In these cases, we always try to encourage
employers to offer paid work but mostly they decline and the vacancy is not
advertised – possibly depriving students of opportunities, but we believe that
a fair day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay and we hope that you agree. The good news is, that most Universities
operate a similar policy so these employers will be unable to recruit students
using Jobshops throughout the UK.
So, in conclusion we know that work experience is valuable
and a few days or a couple of weeks unpaid may give you a great insight into
your chosen career, but if you are contributing to a business by the work that
you are doing, you should be paid at least the National Minimum Wage for your
efforts (currently £5.13 at 18yrs, £6.50 per hr at 21 yrs)
If you need any further help or information about unpaid
work, please call in to Student Jobshop and we will help if we can.
So back to MacDougall – as his work hours are flexible, and
do not amount to more than 2 weeks work in total, we consider him a
volunteer - however we do think he
should get paid for his ‘day job’ on 24/25 December as his hours are not optional!
Have a Happy December – look out for MacDougall – there may
be prizes…………….
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