The Philips Employment Scheme WGP

The Philips Employment Scheme

Gain a whole year of work experience, combined with training. Philips is offering this unique opportunity to jobseekers who have been out of work for some time. The Philips Employment Scheme (WGP) was set up especially with them in mind thirty years ago. It has been very successful and it is still successful today: on average 70% of participants go on to find paid work afterwards.

Goal WGP

The goal of the WGP is to make job seekers more likely to be able to enter the labor market, so that he/she is able to acquire a regular job after the WGP year.

Am I eligible for a WGP placement?

Philips aims to give everyone in society an equal opportunity with its WGP Employment Scheme. The program is open to all jobseekers who have been out of work for some time no matter what their gender, age, ethnic origin or employment history.

There are, of course, some rules. You are eligible to apply if you have not yet had work experience at Philips and if you answer to one of the following descriptions:

You are in receipt of benefit under the Participation Act (PW) and have been out of work for at least 6 months;
You are in receipt of unemployment benefit (WW) and have been out of work for at least 12 months;
You are registered disabled (Wajong, WIA, PW target group register);
You have no basic qualifications (MBO-2 (basic secondary vocational education) or higher).

Placement options

The required level of education for The Philips Employment Scheme varies from lower professional education to higher education. Work experience can be gained within a wide range of fields; administration, ICT, sales, marketing, production, technology, HRM are options.

Placement is possible with an introductory agreement with a working time between 20 and 40 hours. The participants receive a reimbursement based on the statutory minimum (youth) wage, supplemented with holiday allowance and the 13th monthly allowance that is customary within Philips.

Work experience and guidance

At Philips our WGP participants will perform work that is relevant. In so doing, they will gain knowledge, skills and experience which will help them after they have left the WGP program. That is why every WGP participant at Philips will be assigned a fixed workplace supervisor and they will attend a number of workshops and seminars, which will help them with their personal development and to find work after the end of the WGP program.

Together with the supervisor, you make a personal development plan and action points that will help you achieve what you are aiming for. Also write down who are what can be helpful doing do.

It is important that together with good guidance and the WGP development program the participants acquire a regular job themselves. Therefore it is important that the previous education, the work experience at Philips and the desired professional direction are in line with each other as much as possible.

The Training/work placement

Philips arranges its own classes for some training courses. This type of placement starts with a ‘preliminary course’ that lasts two or three months; if you complete this successfully, you can then move on to the actual work placement. In that placement you will be given an opportunity to work on the practical component of the course (working four days a week) and the rest of the theory (training one day a week). The aim is for you to gain relevant work experience but also to come out with a recognized vocational qualification at the end of the placement. The placement lasts between 12 and a maximum of 24 months, depending on the duration of the vocational training course.