Degree Apprentice Review

As an apprentice, I will be working in many different areas in the company six months each for four years. My current responsibility is to ensure that virtual systems are built and tested in accordance to project requirement for them to be used in development projects of IT in the company. But as a new starter to this role, currently I will be learning how each of the teams perform that day to day tasks, and I will be given a couple of tasks to perform to ensure my understanding of the role for each team.

From my experience in the previous rotation where I got involved in project portfolio work. Skills such as communication skills, customers (internal) service skills, project management skills, training, and problem solving, are gained from communicating with project managers and users of the work management system. I learned how to help people using the system, I learned how to collate the information for it to be useful to required audience, and I learned the best practices in the business.

I like the culture, particularly the culture of safety - everything we do here, safety and security is at front and centre. People at sse here are also approachable at all levels which makes me feel welcomed.

From my experience of my previous rotation, I genuinely feel valued from the work I did for six months which has improved performance of the team and shows the trust that people of my former team put has in me. I also feel valued by the fact that my feedback that I gave to the team before I the end of the previous rotation has been taken on board and acted upon seriously.

The overall structure of the programme is well organised. There is a plan for each apprentice of the areas they will get involved into throughout their entire time at sse. The plan also has some flexibility for allowing us to experience an opportunity on areas in which we have a particular interest. There is also a platform for us to improve the quality of the programme for future apprentices. The support is also widely available from a number of people such as mentors, the teams in which we are working, and our line manager. There is, however, less organisation in the lower level once each apprentice started working for any particular area. Those areas sometimes lack of a plan for some apprentices of what they should be doing.

The education provider for this programme, University of Chichester, offers a number of ways that apprentices could receive support (both study related and non-study related) and facilities that we could use for our learning throughout our course in university. However, since we only attend university one day per week, I have not experienced or asked for support as much as I would like to.

sse offers support to apprentices via a number of individuals such as placement managers, team managers, line managers, and mentors. The attitude of people here in supporting each other is fantastic whereby the support is pretty much informal and can be given swiftly without too many process.

The rate of the paying wage is relatively sufficient to the costs of living and travel here. The programme also guarantee the increase of salary from the start of the programme, this will also be based on the performance we achieved at the company.

The 'make a difference' scheme is a scheme that encourages us to get involved in a number of different events where the advertisements for charity, voluntary, and social events in the local area, are regularly done and encouraged by sse.

Yes

sse is a great place to work where the friendliness of people, the eager of people to help each other do well, and safety and security is one of the important core values here, makes sse unique and different.

I believed that sse looks for individuals who are eager to learn and believed that they can make a difference. These two things, if shown, would make an encouraging case for you to be able to join us.