Bryony Medwell’s Work Experience at Integrity Communications Group

ICG was delighted to welcome a student named Bryony to our Midsomer Norton office earlier this month for a week of work experience. During her time with us, Bryony took part in a variety of activities, including gaining hands-on experience in our marketing department, creating social media content, and reviewing our websites to identify strengths and areas for improvement.

At the end of the week, Bryony was asked to write a short report reflecting on her experience—and we’re pleased to share her thoughts with you below.

I’m a Year 11 student at Crispin School in Street and had arranged a week’s work experience with a local company. Walking into Integrity Communications Group on Monday morning, I wasn’t sure what to expect – but by the end of the week, I’d learnt more than I ever imagined about business, marketing, and what really happens behind the scenes at a busy print and mail company (spoiler: it’s a lot more than just clicking “print”).

Day One: Health, Safety & Cybersecurity
My first day kicked off with a full health and safety briefing and a tour of the factory – which was actually way more interesting than I expected (I didn’t know so many machines were involved in sending out a simple letter!). Then I headed to the office, where I tackled some basic online cybersecurity training – important stuff, even if it did make me feel like a mini IT consultant by the end of it. I had some time with Andrew Law, the Sales and Marketing Director who talked to me about the Group and how they go to market and set me some tasks to complete during my week here. Quite an overwhelming first day.

The Website Project – 10 Sites, 1 Big Report
From Monday to Thursday, my main task was to create a report on the websites of ten of the companies that make up the Integrity Communications Group. I analysed each of their websites – looking at things like their purpose, target audience, key selling points, and even the bits I didn’t like (constructive criticism, of course). This taught me how to look at websites through a business lens, not just as a user – and made me realise just how powerful a website can be for B2B companies.

Marketing Masterclasses
Every day from Tuesday to Friday, I had an hour-long Teams call with Finlay Cornford, who manages social media marketing for some of the companies in the group. We went from brainstorming ideas for posts, to designing graphics, to scheduling and analysing performance – basically a crash course in digital marketing. It was eye-opening to see how much thought goes into just one post – it’s definitely more than just “make it look nice and hope for some likes”!

Conversations That Matter
I also got the chance to speak to employees like Rachel Quick who manages Charity Resource and Tom Lamb who looks after Labels zoo, who gave me an insight into the parts of a business you’d never see from the outside – things like invoicing, customer management, and creating job tickets. It made me realise how much work happens behind the scenes just to keep everything running smoothly. Spoiler alert: running a business is hard work with lots of plates to spin.

Down on the Shop Floor
I even spent some time working on the factory floor, where I learnt how letters are printed, enveloped, and sent to the post office – and how the team deal with letters that are returned undelivered. Honestly, I’ll never look at a posted letter the same way again. There’s a lot of kit involved and lots of quality checks that have to be made – the sheer scale of operations was fascinating to see.

The Takeaway (No, Not the Food Kind)
Overall, my week at Integrity taught me loads about how businesses market themselves and the massive amount of effort that goes into delivering a product – not just from the factory team, but from the people in the office making sure every order is good to go.

The best part? The atmosphere. Everyone was friendly, welcoming, and while there were lots of laughs it was still a super productive environment. I always felt comfortable asking for help, and I was made to feel like part of the team from day one.

I thoroughly enjoyed my work experience at Integrity, and I’d 100% recommend it to anyone thinking about getting a behind-the-scenes look at how a real business runs. Just be ready to take on a lot of new information – there is so much to learn. The biggest single thing I learned was how important the people are – they make the business. Thank you to all the people at Integrity who helped make this a great work experience.

We strive to always give back to our community, which includes giving young people opportunities to develop their own skills. We are pleased to hear that Bryony found her experience with us to be beneficial, we hope the things she has learned will be a great help to her in the future!

For all the latest news and updates, you can visit our News section here.