Enhance your team with apprentices who are keen and ready to learn
Hiring an apprentice is becoming an increasingly common practise amongst businesses small and large but how to do you find the best candidates and how do you best support them?
Hiring an apprentice can be an exciting option for both the apprentice and an employer.
It can enhance a business, bringing keen learners, fresh viewpoints and opportunities to upskill your workforce.
West Berkshire Training Consortium can help with this, having been specialising in delivering high quality apprenticeships for around 40 years.
It has helped over 15,000 apprentices with their career journeys.
Taking up an apprenticeship allows you to find a job with a local employer, develop the skills and knowledge needed to succeed at work and achieve recognised qualifications to boost your prospects.
The programmes are made up of a mixture of college attendance and on-the-job training within the workplace.
Two Thatcham-based businesses have commented on the success brought by their partnership with West Berkshire Training Consortium.
Engineering company Adbro has been hiring apprentices with WBTC since 2007 and says it has been a “brilliant” process.
The Thatcham based business builds control systems and offers engineering services to a variety of clients; from Small and Medium s through to large international names such as Heinz, McVities, Legoland, Muller, Network Rail and Thermo Fisher.
It currently has five apprentices working in its team of 18, working in a variety of roles from engineering apprentices on three year courses to an administrator nearing the end of her single year course.
Adbro employee Daniel Moore started off as an apprentice and 11 years on and he remains with the company with apprentices of his own.
“He was just 16 when he started,” commented director Nicky Brian.
“He started straight from his GCSE’s and now he is one of our senior controls engineers.
“He is now running huge, hundreds of thousands of pounds projects on his own, looking after his own apprentices.”
Mrs Brian added: “He has come right from the bottom all the way up to the top.”
West Berkshire Training Consortium regularly visits its apprentices in order to ensure they receive the time and support that they need to progress.
Mrs Brian, who has been with the company for 15 years, said that the training consortium makes visits every six weeks to check on its learners and ensure they understand their roles, responsibilities and are able to exceed in their desired field.
She said: “It is quite hands on.
“They are treated like full blown engineers, they are given a job to do.
“There is a lot of self-learning expected of them.”
Mrs Brian says when it came to hiring apprentices not even the Pandemic could hinder progress, with WBTC adapting to the unprecedented circumstances.
“We employed a couple of apprentices right in the middle of the pandemic and it was done online and through telephone calls,” she said.
“We were still able to work through it and we got two fantastic engineers employed in 2020.
“They’re doing really well, it’s working really well.”
Mrs Brian said it was brilliant to be able to take young people on and nurture them with the help of the consortium.
She commented on the benefits of hiring an individual who doesn’t come with pre-established ways of working that may not fit the business's style.
She said: “You train them right from the beginning. There are no pre-conceptions when they join a comppany.
“Here at Adbro we find this approach can benefit the learning process of the apprentices due to the varying nature of jobs they will be involved in”
She continued: “They’re keen and they are enthusiastic.”
West Berkshire based business Stacatruc has been hiring apprentices for 23 years and began working with WBTC five years ago.
The independent company, which deals in forklift truck hire as well as sales, maintenance and finance, has been operating within the local community for over 40 years.
Managing director Peter Venn, sales director Phillip McConnell, operations director Paul Vousden commented on the work that West Berkshire Training Consortium Rachel Eaves and her team do and called themselves massive advocates of apprenticeships.
Many of its apprentices have progressed through the Stacatruc ranks to become some of the most experienced members of the team- including operations director Paul Vousden.
Upon completion of their courses, apprentices move on to various roles within the company from business admins to accountants or more hands on roles like a level 3 lift truck and powered access engineering technician apprenticeship.
The business, which offers courses that last between two or three years, says it is proud to have links with “amazing external colleagues within the local community”.
Commenting on the company’s relationship with WBTC, design and marketing colleague Zara said: “We are delighted with our partnership.
“The feedback from our now full time and trained staff is that they speak highly of their tutors and have enjoyed the mix of having their amazing support to our practical nurturing allowing what they are learning to become a reality.
“Each apprentice is given a mentor alongside their journey. Our department managers love this part of their work and find it rewarding.
“We all have one goal to create a working environment that has a good balance of happiness, wellbeing and being personable, by us having a tailored approach and the one-to-one support, we find it results in us having fantastic loyal high achieving apprentices.”
She said: “We are all constantly in contact with one another and to date have a great working and studying relationship that doesn’t just benefit us but WBTC as well.
“It’s helped us to tackle a skills shortage in our workforce where as a company we have grown and our staff have become stretched creating new positions.
“Together through using this process we have developed a motivated, qualified and dedicated workforce.”
She continued: “We are very pleased to say that they still work with the company and had promotion which we are so proud of.
“They are able to earn and learn. Stacatruc are very pleased to have recently been awarded with the WBTC Investment in Training Award for our organisations approach to supporting 16-18-year-olds.”
“Peter Venn, Phill McConnell, Paul Vousden and Parts Manager Lizee Stephenson are excited to be welcoming and mentoring their latest apprentice Shannon who will be taking on a recently advertised ‘Parts Administration’ role and alongside she will be enrolled on a ‘Business Administration’ course and we cannot wait to see Shannon blossom.”
