The Recyclery Bike Shop Internship Program
The Recyclery Bike Shop paid Internship Program is a six-month workforce development program designed for youth 15 to 18 interested in gaining work readiness skills, job skills, and making their own money.
Students will be trained on work readiness skills, customer service, bike mechanics, and skills specific to running a business. Youth will be trained and supervised by shop staff, and work their way through lesson plans that develop the workforce development skills that are not only applicable to working in a bike shop but can also be applied in other retail and customer service jobs. The objectives are modeled after the California Department of Education’s, Work Experience Education (WEE) program, a work based learning course that teaches workplace competencies in a real-world situation. This model provides an on-the-job component with related classroom instruction designed to maximize the value of the on-the-job experience.
The first part of the program will focus on "non-cognitive" skills (soft skills) which play an important part in college and career success. Soft skills include motivation, time management, perseverance, and self-regulation. Students will also develop ready-to-work attitudes/interview skills; financial literacy; knowledge of workplace safety and workers rights; business operations; how to fill out a timesheet and know what payroll deductions to expect; and then towards the end of their internship they will focus on career decision making and planning.
Students will then learn hard skills through hands-on work experience at the bike shop gaining social emotional learning skills like relationships skills and social awareness along the way.
Recyclery Interns Will Learn:
The Recyclery Bike Shop paid Internship Program is a six-month workforce development program designed for youth 15 to 18 interested in gaining work readiness skills, job skills, and making their own money.
Students will be trained on work readiness skills, customer service, bike mechanics, and skills specific to running a business. Youth will be trained and supervised by shop staff, and work their way through lesson plans that develop the workforce development skills that are not only applicable to working in a bike shop but can also be applied in other retail and customer service jobs. The objectives are modeled after the California Department of Education’s, Work Experience Education (WEE) program, a work based learning course that teaches workplace competencies in a real-world situation. This model provides an on-the-job component with related classroom instruction designed to maximize the value of the on-the-job experience.
The first part of the program will focus on "non-cognitive" skills (soft skills) which play an important part in college and career success. Soft skills include motivation, time management, perseverance, and self-regulation. Students will also develop ready-to-work attitudes/interview skills; financial literacy; knowledge of workplace safety and workers rights; business operations; how to fill out a timesheet and know what payroll deductions to expect; and then towards the end of their internship they will focus on career decision making and planning.
Students will then learn hard skills through hands-on work experience at the bike shop gaining social emotional learning skills like relationships skills and social awareness along the way.
Recyclery Interns Will Learn:
- Team building and professional communication skills
- Sales techniques and customer service skills
- Basic bike mechanic skills such as tire and inner tube changes and bike safety assessment and adjustments
- How to process donations of bikes and bike gear
- The process of arranging bike part sales on eBay.
- Research and analysis (related to products and marketing)
- The basics of business operations: daily sales reconciliations, marketing, and project management
- Critical thinking skills
- Leadership skills