Supply Assistant Review

I am a supply chain assistant on Mens haircare at Boots head office in Nottingham. My day to day job involves, liasing with key suppliers to ensure stock is in the correct place when it is needed to ensure customers a smooth shopping experience. I am responsible for raising manual orders, seeing through new promotions, rebuilds, as well as supporting stores with stock push queries. I have to work cross functionlly with my buying and merchandising team to ensure a smooth end to end supply chain. Every morning i will review and release my orders, review my critical report which shows me potential problem lines / out of stock lines, and spoeak with the warehouse to ensure suppleris have booked in and delivered stock correctly. Salesplan is a rolling monthly task which i am responsible for forecasting each period and having meetings with my suppleirs to ensure they can accommodate for the uplift in promotional stock.

Since finishing college and begining my full time role at Boots head office i have learnt so much. Being in a work environment is very different to being at college and it has made me mature and grow in confidence due to speak with global suppleirs daily and working with so many people in the business. My time management skills have massively developed as i have to juggle having a full tiem job with college work for my apprenticeship as well as having a good work/personal life balance. I have found getting 'to-do' lists has helped me organise my time and improve my prioritsation skills. The nature of my job involves a lot of excel based reports and therefore my confidence and skills on that has improved. I found collating reports and analysing them difficult at first as it is not something I was familiar with at college. Going outside of my confort zone is another aspect of my job. To ensure an overall smooth end to end supply chain it is vital i work with many people around the business and ask the correct people relevant questions. Therefore my confidence with approaching new people has grown. I also have to regularly do presentations both within my day to day job and for my apprenticeship so my presentation skills and public speaking has developed too since starting my new role.

I really enjob the Boots apprenticeship programme. I love the fact I get to work in a huge business and meet so many different people. Everyday is different and i enjoy facin new challenges. I feel my progamme is very well structured and my team are very supportive when it comes to the qualification side of my work. The delivery of my college work is well set out and the aims and objectives are clear with a very manageable work load. I have also met so many people who have now become friends on my apprenticeship because we often get away days and out of office team bulding exercises which allow us to form friendships outside of work. This means i now know people from differrent funtions and departments all around the business making working cross functionally much easier. I love the fact i get to put my theoetical learning into practice through my day job and it helps me reflect on what i have learnt and set new objectives. Sometimes it can be diffcult to keep up with college work when things in my day job get busy but i try to ensure i complete all work in the given study time on thursday afternoons to avoid falling behind.

Boots are very keen to push their CSR policies and ensure they are an ethical compnay. I get involved in various charity events, most recently the 'WE DAY' event at Wemberly Arena in London. I feel confident that if i ever had any personal issues my team support me when im at work. And any work relatied issues, i am aware of the people i can go to and the actions to take. I have been given a mentor and a buddy to support my professional developmnent. This not only allows me to gain advice on how to progress my career but also has allowed me to form relationships. I am prasied when i do a job well and any feedback i am given is constructive which allows me to set new objectives and work towards targets. Overall, i do feel valued at Boots and as an apprenttice i feel i am viewed as a future leader and my input is valued highly.

My programme is very well structured. The apprenticeship work is delivered by babbington college but we have a training provider who comes to Boots every thursday afernoon to give us the lectures. This is good because we don't have to leave work to do the qualification and is convineint. We have been given a clear delivery programme which sets out what we will learneach week, with clear deadlines for our reports. My team is fully aware of what is expected of us at college and support me in leaving my day job at 12pm on Thursdays to complete college work. My apprenticeship lead regularly checks in withus and puts on development days which give us chnace to feedback and review how we are doing.

We get a lot of support from Seetal our training provider. She clearly delivers all the lectures so each aim and objective is clear to me and Iknow how to set out all my reports and essays. Any questions I have i can ask her in the college sessions or i can ring/email her in the week with any other queries i have. She reviews and marks my work quickly and will always give me feedback on my work on how i can improve. Seetal meets with my line manager to give feedback on how i am performing and update him on what we are learning at college. This way my team understand my college work and can help me with it if needs be.

My team are very supportive of my college work. I have weekly 121's with my line manager and my team lead where they will always ask me how i am getting on in my day to day role and my college work. I am supported in being given the time i need to complete my college work - i.e thursday afternoons.

For a 19 year old my salary allows me to enjoy a happy social life, enjoy holidays and save moeny for future goals such as buying a house. After my apprentcieship my salary will increase and i should be able to have incremental pay rises as my work load increases and i show more compitance within my role.

Boots offer many different oppotunities outside of work. Due to their CSR there are a lot of charity events we can get inolved in. Recently, we have been given the oppotuntity to do a triathlon in wales for the macmillan cancer charity. I also take part in various away days with my apprentceship team as well as my Mens team for teambuilding days. I have recently organised our annual team away day where we will go to the escape rooms and for a nice meal. This gives us chance to get to know eachother outside of a work enviroment. In a few weeks the whole of supply function will go on an awayday. Last year itwas held at centre parcs, showing we are given lots of oppotunities to have fun outside of the office and get to know different people in envronments other than the work place.

Yes

I would definatley recommend boots to a friend. I have already helped a few friends with applications for this years cohort. I think we given a great oppotunity to get our foot in the door in a huge company at such a young age. We are given fantastic training which i could take with me anywhere in the future. As apprentices we are given great oppotunities and get to have lunches with senior people in the business which gives us great exposure to people high up in the business allowing us to be recognised, helping our development inthe future.

I would say if you want to apply go for it. Put in effort to your application and do research on the business and the job you are applying for to give you the best chance and allow you to stand out in your interview. Do lots of practice competancy questions and make lists of all the times you have show skills in your job, work or school life as this will all help with the application