The Young Employees Forum (YEF) exists to connect all early careers Buro Happold employees in their professional and personal development.
Forums are run locally and connected globally to provide a focus for activity throughout the entire practice. Involvement with the forum is encouraged until you are officially promoted to a senior grade.
"The YEF has been one of the best aspects of joining BH – I moved to the area not really knowing anyone but instantly had a network of people around my age. It was great to help me settle and has meant I have been able to form some great connections, both within the office, as well as other offices with our UK and Global events. It is hard to overestimate how useful it has been for getting integrated within the office/company"
George Price (Graduate Structural Engineer)
YEF outreach has seen a whole host of events over the past year from the great success of the annual work experience week to many merchandise-infused careers fair stands. YEF outreach have been involved in some great events, summary of this past year…
Work Experience
Our July work experience week kicked off this summer with 25 students from across the country coming together at the Bath office to work through a design brief, as well as hearing all about the numerous disciplines we have at Buro Happold. The final day judges came away impressed with the standard of the work presented and asked insightful questions about the teamwork from each group and the unique design approaches taken. Feedback from students collected at the end of the week was incredibly positive.
Babbasa Career Fair
A particular standout event was the Babbasa careers fair, run by the organisation’s Youth Ambassadors, which is aimed at ethnic minorities and low-income background 16–30-year-olds. We ran the ever-popular ‘Build the Tallest Tower’ activity, engaging those from all age ranges – those still at school to those looking for jobs after a masters.
Hold Back the Flood is a great session which we run as it gives a fun hands-on experience to students at multiple local schools; the building of ‘flood-proof’ structures and testing them until failure gives a competitive element to keep them excited.
Local careers fairs and careers talks involving us take place throughout the year and are incredibly rewarding when even just a few students begin to understand a bit more about what engineering and its surrounding disciplines are all about! We generally informally chat to students and run a fun activity alongside to engage more people with the stall (as well as handing out the coveted BH pens!).
Bristol WORKS
Bristol WORKS is an organisation we have also been involved with and are looking to continue developing our relationship with. Recently, our YEF colleagues helped us run a session at Orchard School in North Bristol to engage students with engineering and what it’s all about. Students who generally may find it difficult to concentrate were engaging well with our activity and everyone was getting into the activity which was really great to see.
YEF are big on inclusive social activities that happen throughout the year including (but not limited to) the annual camping trip, new starters quiz and global YEF socials.
Some of the activities that YEF were involved in are as follows:
Camping Trip
On September POETs the annual camping trip took place with YEF members from all around the country travelling down the Wye valley for a weekend of camping. With people from different offices arriving throughout the evening on Friday the huddle around the campfire started to grow bigger. Saturday morning started with an early morning cooked breakfast before everyone headed to the river for canoeing. With minimal capsizing the route finished at the pub before heading back to the campsite.
In the evening everyone headed over to the pub for dinner and a quiz. After an impressive display of paper construction and rugby moves, it was another late night around the campfire.
"The camping trip was a fun opportunity to meet people from other offices and as a new starter a great introduction to the YEF. I would recommend to anyone who gets the opportunity to go."
Celeste Jones (Intern – Structures)
New Starters Quiz
The new starters quiz was a great introduction for the new graduates/apprentices to the YEF. This year’s theme was ‘supermarket aisles’. Each team had to get creative, designing their own costumes (mostly from cardboard) for their respective aisle. These ranged from laundry baskets and bags of flour to chickens with reduced stickers and tins of spam.
The lead up to the event was defined by a series of challenges set by our designated quizmaster. These helped create excitement in the run up to the event, which was a great success on the night!! Mixing with new starters from all different BH departments, while dressed as a piece of shopping, was a great way to break the ice and meet each other.
Lane 7 – Bowling
"The YEF Social to Lane 7 was one of the first socials I attended having started as a graduate at Buro Happold. This was a fun and interactive introduction to the wider team as we played a range of games such as bowling, darts and pool.
I personally enjoyed the element of friendly competition despite scoring almost all of my points by complete chance! Equal to other YEF Socials, this was a great way to make friends within the company and to reflect on the evening in good spirit."
Lili Mather (Graduate Structural Engineer)
