This week sees the UK’s 10th National Apprenticeship Week – Bringing together employers and apprentices to celebrate the success of apprenticeships up and down the country.
Over the last decade even more people chose apprenticeships as a fast-track to a great career and this is set to continue.
Since our ealy days, we’ve used apprenticeship schemes to recruit valuable employees. But there’s no making tea for the apprentices here….. We like our apprentices to get stuck straight in and from day one!
Customer service was our first department to welcome young people into the world of work – including Leah who is now a customer advisor. But as we’ve grown it’s our technical support team that has reaped the most rewards in terms of talented young employees joining as apprentices.
Jamie joined Boxx in Sep 2014 after finishing his A-Levels and being recruited by 3aaa – Our local apprenticeship provider. Jamie immediately showed promise and impressed us as his new employers, but also his course assessors, who we regularly welcome into the office to meet with their students.
We’ve built up a great relationship with 3aaa – Whilst we write the initial job descriptions ourselves, 3aaa vet the applicants which is a great time saver for us. 3aaa have learnt exactly what we are looking for which makes the whole process really simple.
3aaa are complimentary about our relationship too, which began in 2014. Rebecca Brooks – Recruitment Executive at 3aaa said….
Boxx Communications understand the importance and benefits of apprenticeships and offers young people the best possible start in their career. They support, teach and nurture apprentices through the ranks and offer long-term career prospects to the right candidates. This is exactly what apprenticeships are about and we look forward to continuing to work together in the future.
As apprentices near the end of their 12-month scheme, our company directors James Green & Dean Burgin sit down with them to talk about their future and are happy to support them whatever path this takes.
Dean quoted…..
We’ve found young people are great to work with, even if they have very little work experience. Raw talent is what we are looking for and we can teach them the rest!
Both Jamie and Chirag – another tech team employee who successfully progressed through the apprenticeship scheme – were pleased to accept permanent roles when their apprenticeship came to an end. Fast forward another 12 months and Jamie has been rewarded for his hard work with a promotion to a supervisory role. He’s now responsible for 2 employees and is continuing to impress – He’s regularly nominated for ‘employee of the month’ and James & Dean are really proud of him.
Not wanting to stop studying, we offered both Jamie & Chirag the opportunity to study towards industry recognised CCNA qualifications, funded by us.
And the future continues to look bright for Boxx’s apprentices – Akeem is the latest apprentice to the tech support team – He only started in December, but he’s already doing really well. And we’ve just recruited newbie James as a digital marketing apprentice too, to support our growing marketing needs!