Essential Banker Review

My role is classified as an 'Essential Banker' and is mainly a customer services role, from meeting and greeting customers, assisting them with their banking on the self service counters, dealing with other queries within my remit using the company's IPads, co-ordinating the banking halls, sending the customers either to the cashiers/tellers or to the personal bankers as required. I also have the responsibilty of keeping the stationery displays topped up, replacing stationery within some of the self service equipment etc, retrieving captured cards for customers. The role aslo requires me to interact with customers engaging them where I can into conversations so that I can understand whether there are any further needs, or whether there are any other products services or that the bank can offer assisting customers in acheiving their goals in life.

I am enrolled to complete a Certificate course 'Retail Banking Conduct of Business (CertRBCB) so I am studying and learning about retail banking. I, as an employee, have to complete courses set by our Human Resources Dept. and complete tests to ensure that I have the correct knowledge and skills for the role that I am in. I have learnt about the banks regulations, policies, procedures, health and safety. I have attended a number of workshops organised by the bank to upskill me for the role that I am in.

I am enjoying the programme in general as I am interested in banking and my back ground has been in Finance. I have a good team of people with whom I work and the companies culture is very inclusive.

I do feel very valued. I have been given a number of responsibilties from day one and I believe that it is on the back of the trust that my managers have in me. I have been told that the feed back with regards to my work, from external sources, has been good and I have recently received acknowledgment from our Area Director in the form of a 'Thank You' card.

When I joined the programme I was unaware that I was going to have to do a Certicate Course, but for me it is an additional benefit. The induction is well organised and the support that I have been receiving has been reasonable from both the trainers and the bank. However the 'Learning Lounge' requires that students complete a number E-Learning modules from the bank's own intranet website, to support the training. These requests are difficult to complete as there are extremely few 'titles' which match the request from the 'Learning Lounge' on the intranet website and if there are, they are usually far too advanced for apprentices and therefore not quite relevant. There is a lot of work to be done in this area in order to assist apprentices/students. I am not sure about what you mean by 'Task Delegation' or 'Team Heirarchy' as I am working as an individual apprentice and not in a team.

My trainer comes at regular intervals and is very supportive. However the trainer takes time in getting back with answers to queries and as there had been no fixed time table at work for study purposes at work by the time any contact was made I would be back on the branch floor. Usually when given time to study, usually about 2 to 3 hours, I would inform my trainer by text to advise him, hoping that he would be available to answer queries doing the study time, but that never worked. So the turn around time on queries have not been to my expectation.

The managers have always been supportive but until very recently were unable to give me the required time to study at work. This obviously has put me behind in my work and caused frustration. They have now made a proposal, which I have accepted, where I work longer hours on 4 days in the week and I am given a day off to study whether from home or at work, which ever is suitable to me.

Living in London is expensive, so even after London weighting, I think my package is not sufficient and certainly doesn't meet day to day costs.

Opportunities outside work are fairly limited. After a days work or study it is difficult to squeeze in anything else. I am a member of the local gym where I excercise and swim 2 to 3 times a week (weekends and maybe one other day). I do go to the cinema a few times in a month and visit the temple every so often. I do read as well but at present am working on the Certificate Course.

Yes

In my short experience I have seen how inclusive the bank is and the amount of flexibilty it allows it's employees. Here young and old both have progression possibilities as long as you show the commitment, enthusiasm and the will to achieve by setting goals and development plans.

Like all companies, there is a process which one needs to go through if applying to Barclays. As long as one is organised with the correct documents and information requested is at hand, the onboarding process is fairly straight forward. The apprenticeship application process was possibly different from that of typical job applications, so I didn't find it stressful, rather it was somewhat of an adventure into the unknown, and as mentioned above I was unaware that there would be a requirement to study for a certification.