Business Administration Apprentice Review

My role is within the social value sector, working alongside the Partnership and community engagement coordinator. My role consists of community outreach, this is activities like school visits, volunteering, WEEE roadshows, career fairs, employability programmes, environmental initiatives like litter picking events and so on. Alongside this I also do the admin side, this includes things like Social Value tracking on spreadsheets, reporting, case study write ups, liaising with stakeholders both internally and externally to the business, attending operational meetings, social value meetings with the client and much more.

My programme is very well structured. On my apprenticeship I have digital learning, assignments and off the job to complete every month. However, I have monthly sessions with my tutor, who explains very clearly and in depth about what is required of me for each assignment, as I am constantly learning and developing my knowledge and skills I am able to log many daily tasks as off the job as they all go torwards my development. I also have a progress review with my manager and tutor quarterly, this helps me reflect on how I am doing both at work and in my apprenticeship- identifying any gaps for development and then exploring opportunities for me to fill these gaps. I dedicate usually 1 day a week to my apprenticeship and I feel it is very well structured. If I have any queries on what I am learning, I often ask my manager/colleagues, failing this, I will contact my tutor. Every month follows the same structure which I find very helpful.

I recieve excellent support from my employer. My manager has frequently helped me with different queries relating to my apprenticeship, as she is familiar with many areas of the business. I never receive pressure to prioritise work over my apprenticeship, I am given plenty of time to complete assignments and learning which means I never feel pressured or stressed with deadlines. Furthermore, my line manager schedules in 1 to 1s for as often as I want them, when I began, they were scheduled in weekly, now I only feel I need them once a month. My colleagues have also been super helpful teaching me different aspects of the business, for example, the supervisors have taught me many operational aspects, where as the admin team have taught me different things about budgets and ordering processes. I feel very supported and celebrated by my employer.

My tutor at learning curve is very supportive. If I ever have any questions, big or small, I feel more than comfortable reaching out to her for support, and she is always very helpful. We have monthly calls but if in the meantime I feel I need extra support, she is always willing to book another call in asap to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and support me.

I feel the apprenticeship has defintiley supported my role, as I learn about more areas of the business and how they operate through my apprenticeship, I am able to apply this knowledge in my job role; this helps me identify what departments to reach out to for different things, what roles I may be interested in shadowing/learning from, what departments link to my daily role- for example, the bid team links closely to the social value team, this is something I learnt at work and then developed my knowledge with the apprenticeship learning. Business admin is a broad scope for knowledge, I have dveeloped knowledge on project managing, microsoft platforms, stakeholders and so on, which all relate directly to my role; as I develop in my job, I am able to further apply knowledge gained during my apprenticeship, this demonstrates how relevant it is.

Yes

Since joining, I have felt completely supported in my role, it is a flexible job where I have been guided throughout, I feel as though I learn more and more everyday and constantly have the opportunities to apply this knowledge.