David joined the DE&S Young Defence Network South West to take advantage of the extra career support and guidance it was offering.

The Young Defence Network South West Network provides peer-to-peer support to early careers professionals and anyone who is new to DE&S.

We:

• Host regular Lunch & Learn Events on a variety of topics to provide our members with professional development opportunities
• Arrange MOD site visits & networking socials to broaden our members’ understanding of the wider organisation and provide support to each other
• Promote the views and opinions of our members to DE&S management to instigate organisational change.

Joining an organisation as large as DE&S can be daunting experience, particularly if someone is joining directly from college, university or a Small or Medium-sized Enterprise (SMEs) in Industry. The Young Defence Network South West is a great way to meet and talk with other new-joiners and early careers professionals outside of your immediate team.

The Young Defence Network South West Network is a diverse resource from which you can gain extra peer support through the sharing of DE&S experiences and knowledge.

The Young Defence Network South West Network is a diverse resource from which you can gain extra peer support through the sharing of DE&S experiences and knowledge – whether that be to resolve any concerns you may have or alternatively to discover opportunities of which you were previously not aware.

I joined the Network to take advantage of the extra support and guidance it was offering – meeting fellow new-joiners from outside of my team and gave me a better appreciation of the organisation and raised my awareness of professional development opportunities which I, perhaps, would not have discovered otherwise.

Grateful for the support it had given me and a strong believer in the support it can offer others, I volunteered as the Lead Advocate Committee Member for the network. I really enjoy being a focal point for new members to approach with any questions they have and raising the presence of the network across the organisation – I find being part of something bigger than ‘just the day job’ to be very rewarding.

I find being part of something bigger than ‘just the day job’ to be very rewarding.

Since its inception in 2017, the Young Defence Network South West Network has already attracted over 300 members across DE&S and continues to grow as DE&S recruits more early careers professionals.

Our achievements include:

• Hosting a successful series of Lunch & Learn events, furthering the professional development of our members
• Arranging a site visit to MOD Main Building, raising our members’ awareness of the relationship DE&S has with Front Line Command
• Promoting the other DE&S Diversity, Inclusion & Outreach Networks via our monthly newsletter
• Supporting a variety of DE&S wide events; such as Inspiring Innovation, Big Benefits Fair and Learning at Work week
• Providing a forum for cross-functional, cross-grade, cross-domain interaction and mutual development

Following the successes over the last year and a half, we want to continue to grow the Network to further deliver the benefits of our membership to an even wider group of early careers professionals and those new to DE&S.

With a strong network base at MOD Abbey Wood, we are keen to develop our presence at other sites to improve our outreach and delivery of support across the wider organisation.

Following the release of our second members’ survey, we will analyse the data to identify the views and opinions of our members, acting as their voice to instigate business change to benefit the organisation and encouraging a culture of process improvement and innovation.