Apprentice Manager Award 2019 - Liisa O'Brien

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The winner of our Apprentice Manager Award went to... Liisa O'Brien!!

We asked Liisa a few questions about her role in supporting an apprentice and winning this award...

1) Who is your Apprentice?

Josephine Allen, who is completing a Business Admin Level 2 & 3 Apprenticeship.

2) Can you describe some benefits of taking on someone who is undertaking Apprenticeship based training?

It gives an apprentice a great opportunity to apply their learning into the role that they are doing.

Our apprentice has come in and learnt very quickly how to do things which I haven't even heard of.

For me, I love developing people - that part of my job and training people up was one of the best bits about it.

You're training them up from scratch and it's really exciting having someone in who isn't coming in with "oh, well I do it this way". It's a massive benefit because they are going into college and learning about the theory behind administration, and then you're putting into practise their learning.

3) What was your reaction to winning your award?

I was shocked to hear my name being called out but feel really honoured to be recognised in this way by the Apprenticeship team and Jo who nominated me.

4) What would you recommend to anyone else considering an Apprenticeship/taking on an apprentice?

We decided to recruit an apprentice 2 years ago, when we had been unsuccessful in recruiting for a grade 4 Administrator. At the time, I met with the Apprenticeship team and was told about the benefits and challenges that recruiting an apprentice could bring.

This wasn't the first time I had recruited a member of staff with little or no experience of working in an office and I'll be honest, I did have concerns about the challenges that it might present me and the difficult conversations I may of had at first. Some of the apprentices haven't ever had office experience so it did make me feel quite anxious.

In reality, quickly on meeting the candidates in the interviews put me at ease straight away. On appointing my new apprentice Jo, I felt confident that with a strong training and development plan, she would be well capable to take on responsibility for the activities in line with her grade. And after two years, she should be in a position to successfully secure herself a grade 4 administration role.

We are now 15 month into the Apprenticeship, and Jo has successfully completed the coursework and off the job training to complete her level 2 Business Admin qualification and she is now taking great steps towards the level 3 qualification which she has another 12 months to complete. Jo has quickly learnt the basics of the role of a training administrator and has been part of a team that has been through significant change, implementing new business systems and often working independently on small administrative projects to drive our department forward in a time of structural change.