Our guide to successful Apprenticeships

Teacher, Mentor… Boss? Working with apprentices is rewarding and challenging.

Almost from the inception of the company, Voktis has embraced the Apprenticeship program in all areas of our business. Giving young people opportunities to forge careers outside of the traditional education system, setting them on a journey for life was baked in.

But what’s it really like to work with apprentices?

First of all it’s not always easy. You have to be able to give up 20% of your working bandwidth to mentor and train, this can be a challenge in a small business where your experienced people are already taking on many roles. You have to be prepared to explain your business and their role in that business in the most minute of detail and be skilled and experienced enough to have something worthwhile to pass on.

Finding the right Apprenticeship Provider to cover the curriculum part of apprenticeships is also crucial, you need to have confidence that they will deliver the course well and be able to work with different types of learner.

Often an apprentice is taking on their first role after full time education and this can be challenging. After being used to having a strict timetable mapping out their day, the “freedom” that comes with working without a schedule can sometime be bewildering and overwhelming, it’s often easier to break down the day into a set of task times and working with them on a to-do list at the start of each day until it becomes second nature for them to plan out their own time.

But it can be so very rewarding.

Watching an apprentice grow in confidence both in their work and life skills is fantastic. One day you’ll look up and realise, they’ve not asked you a question all day and they’re just getting on with working and learning.

And at the end of the apprenticeship, what then?

Many carry on their career with us, using the skills and knowledge to help us grow our business.

Several of our apprentices have chosen to move on in the world, taking our blessings with them. It’s a testament to our skills as mentors that our apprentices are highly employable.

Some have even chosen to do Higher Apprenticeships with us, the drive to learn and continue to develop their career with us is a great compliment to us.

As the business grows Voktis will continue to recruit apprentices to work alongside our highly experienced team and our apprenticeship graduates are using their experiences to help guide our new intakes through the process.