National Apprenticeship Week – Part 1

This week we have been celebrating National Apprenticeship Week – so we thought we would run a short series of blogs on our apprentices.

To start the series off a little bit about Envisage and why we employ apprentices.

Why do Envisage employ apprentices?

As a local independent business, we feel it is important to support and encourage young people to further develop their skills after leaving the education system.  Apprentices are the future business owners and we encourage and champion this.

Employing apprentices gives young people a way to get onto their desired career path.  We are fully aware and appreciate for some, this maybe just a stepping stone, but we believe that if we support our apprentices, develop and hone their skills they will find a full and rewarding career with us with the chance to grow and propel through our ranks.  Our first apprentice is now Head of Operations and overseas the daily running of operations within the business.  We have also seen one of our apprentices receive the accolade of Rising Star.

We encourage our apprentices once they have completed their first qualification to further develop their skills by applying for further qualifications relevant to our industry.  Our apprentices are supported during their apprenticeship term, they have the same valued input and experiences as our team.  Their ideas and input are as important as anybody else from the team.   In fact they have some excellent ideas and bring experience and skills in different aspects of the business.

What is the process for becoming an apprentice at Envisage?

Our apprentices are put through the same initial interview process as members of the team applying for any role within Envisage.  Our workforce is not just a team, we are a family, we treat each other with respect and celebrate our achievements together as a team.  Everyone is important in the business with their thoughts and ideas – it is very important to Directors that our staff feel appreciated and successes are shared, this is important for apprentices too.   We believe that our retention of apprentices and ability to provide permanent positions within the company shows our commitment to the apprenticeship programme and we are always looking for bright young people to join us and take our company forward.

What benefits have apprenticeships brought to your organisation?

As previously mentioned, apprentices are a massive benefit to organisations.  If given time and support through mentoring these individuals will thrive.  We feel we have been extremely fortunate with our apprentices.  As a SME our team, including apprentices are not restricted to working in one area of the business, we encourage staff to learn other aspects of the business as we feel this greatly supports the company and individuals’ roles and development.  We believe that if we continue to develop and hone the skills of these young individuals they will be our future and will be able to help us grow the business, thus giving themselves a career path to follow.