How does the WAM programme work?

There are a number of elements to the WAM programme but at its core are the mentored work placements and its network of employers.

As part of the programme participating employers offer up to six months paid and mentored work placements within their organisations. These are typically mainstream graduate entry level positions within the company and graduates must compete for roles that are available, as they would when applying for any job. Not all the employers involved with the programme will have placements available every year.

In order to be eligible to apply for a work placement on the programme, a graduate must have a disability or specific learning difficulty and a minimum of a leaving cert qualification. However, please note that individual employers will have minimum qualifications requirements for their roles and this can vary between different employers.

WAM Work Placement Rounds

The WAM placement programme typically works in rounds and every year a round of placements is held. The number of work placements that are available varies from year to year and will depend on which employers have work placements available for that particular year. Occasionally we have work placements made available by an employer outside the main round of placements.

WAM has held three rounds of placements since the origins of the project in 2006 and has successfully placed 61 graduates with disabilities across a wide range of organisations.

WAM Recruitment and Selection

Notification of WAM work placements is circulated as they become available. WAM advertises nationally through newspapers, radio, and our network of contacts in disability services and careers services across the third level sector.

In order to apply for a work placement, interested graduates must fill out a WAM application form and return this to WAM, together with an updated CV. WAM will forward all CVs to individual employers who will carry out CV screening and interviewing.

Although WAM advertises the roles that are available, each employer will carry out their own recruitment and selection processes following their normal in-house procedures. WAM is therefore a mainstream competitive process and there is no guarantee of interview or of a placement on the programme. Graduates, similar to applying for any role, will have to compete against each other and often there are more applications then placements available.

WAM Needs Assessment

Following the recruitment process, a needs assessment is undertaken with each candidate to be placed on the programme. The needs assessment will look at what reasonable accommodations, if any, the candidate will require to undertake the role. The needs assessment is administered by WAM, not the employer and provides the space for a potential employee to discuss and make requests for job based supports.

A Needs Assessment recommendations report is written up in consultation with the candidate and is passed on to the employer before the placement commences.

Here are some examples of the types of reasonable accommodations that have been put in place by employers for WAM graduates:

Assistive Technology for visually impaired graduates such as JAWS, Kurzweil and Screen magnification software.
Sign language interpreters for interviews with graduates who are deaf and where necessary once in the placement for example, at induction or group meetings.
Time off for medical appointments.

The WAM needs assessment process is a tool that has been developed by WAM over the course of the programme to identify work place supports and is not a stand alone assessment.

WAM has found that over the life of the programme, nearly half of the placed candidates (47%) did not require any reasonable accommodation in order to take up a placement. FÁS also have a number of employer grants and supports available that employers can utilize to help fund the cost of reasonable accommodations.

The WAM Mentoring Model:

Mentoring is fundamental to the WAM approach and key to its success. Mentoring is a process through which an experienced person provides support, guidance and encouragement to a less experience person.
Every placed candidate on the programme is assigned a mentor within the workplace; someone who works in the same organisation but is not the mentee’s direct line manager or supervisor. The mentor fundamentally acts as a sounding board for the mentee and also helps with social integration into the workplace.

Mentoring contracts which outline goals for both mentor and mentee are drawn up prior to the commencement of the placement and singed by both parties in order to provide a structure for the relationship. WAM has found that the majority of those involved in previous rounds of WAM found the mentoring process to be beneficial and worthy of wider application.

Pre-placement training

Prior to the commencement of placements, training is provided to participating managers, mentors and mentees (placed candidates) on the programme. Training covers topics such as the WAM programme itself, disability awareness, the mentoring model and work ethics. It is during the pre-placement training that mentors and mentees are brought together for the first time to establish the boundaries and ground rules of their new relationship.

Evaluation

WAM evaluates each round of placements to gather the learning from all the parties involved, which includes managers, mentors, mentees and HR staff. The purpose of this evaluation is to ensure that WAM captures and consolidates the learning from all perspectives involved in the programme. This is then fed back into the WAM network of employers.

For further information and to view previous WAM evaluations please click here...