The CIPD has teamed up with Jobcentre Plus to launch a new work experience guide to help employers raise the quality of work experience available to young job seekers. News from Simons Muirhead & Burton

A new guide published by the CIPD and Jobcentre Plus, Work experience placements that work, is designed to encourage more employers to provide meaningful work experience to help young job seekers get a foothold in the labour market as the economic downturn has hit young people harder than any other group. The guide offers employers help on giving young people, aged between 18 and 24, their first positive and practical experience of work. It is designed to support the Government’s initiative, Get Britain Working, and quality work experience is at the core of the advice, with recommendations on how to: structure the work experience, devise a work plan around appropriate tasks, support and supervise, provide constructive feedback and help the individual enter working life. It also contains a checklist for the employer running a placement and a ‘Work Experience Agreement’ that can be signed by the employer and the young person, helping to ensure commitment on both sides. Sixs percent of employees have witnessed homophobic bullying Stonewall’s latest five-year poll of public attitudes towards lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people reveals that in the last five years six percent of people, 2.4m people of working age, have witnessed verbal homophobic bullying at work. Stonewall has published its latest report into public attitudes towards lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people, Living together: British attitudes to lesbian, gay and bisexual people in 2012. The representative survey of 2,074 adults reveals that in the workplace over the last five years 15% have at some point witnessed verbal homophobic bullying and one in twenty five have witnessed physical homophobic bullying. People think gay people are more likely to be open about their sexual orientation in 2012 than in 2007. Then, 46% of people thought gay people in business were likely to hide their sexual orientation. By 2012, this had fallen to just under 31%. Stonewall recommends that the Government should publicly promote the business case for workplace equality and develop simple, accessible tools for all employers on tackling homophobic bullying and making workplaces gay-friendly.