Digital Engagement Apprentice Review

My day to day role at the moment involves supporting my team with a variety of different tasks. My team cover both internal and external communications for the business via our numerous digital channels. On a day to day basis I am required to audit the Unilever.com website and its 47 country websites as well as internal MCO (Country) sites. I also help develop and drive new projects the team is issued, such as the new homepage on the Unilever websites, the new search cloud on the Unilever websites as well as the Take Action hub on Unilever.com. I am also required to provide admin support to my team as per my business admin apprenticeship, for example supporting with the financial tasks the team has to complete such as securing statements of work from suppliers and then creating purchase orders for our suppliers.

I have learnt and develop upon many skills whilst completing my apprenticeship at Unilever. I have learnt how to become a better communicator both with peers and colleagues but also through our digital channels. I have learnt how to work within such a large global organisation and learnt how to adjust to the corporate world. I have also learnt many new things about websites, for example the stages before a new page goes live on the website, from concept, to build, to testing, to launch. I have also learnt how to content upload on web pages. I have been on personal development courses such as time management and assertiveness training, as well as team building days, strategy days and well being workshops.

I absolutely love my programme. I really enjoy working with the team I have been put in, the are so inspiring, positive and supportive and are made up from such a diverse crowd of people. I love the work we do, it is a department/ role that I never knew existed when I was at school, let alone was accessible to me. The biggest positive has to be the company culture. They have such a great attitude to work/ life balance installed right throughout the company and the agile working approach is such a great benefit. I also like the balance between on-the-job and off-the-job training balance.

I think the programme from Unilever's perspective is very well organised and structured. We had an induction when we first started for 2 days, which gave us great preparation to the company and what we could expect. We have training from our training provider but the apprenticeship team also issue us training on things such as 'Assertiveness' and 'Time management'. We also the can receive team relevant training, with the ability to go on external courses paid for from the team budget. I receive lots of support from the apprenticeship team, my team and my line manager. My line manager and I have weekly one to ones to stay on top of my well-being and workload. We are on the job 80% of the time and have 20% off the job time to complete coursework and webinars. The team were great at letting me chose when the 20% off the job training was and allowing me to stay offline during my off the job learning hours to focus on my apprenticeship work.

I receive lots of support from my employer. This support is regular and easily accessible. I have weekly 1-2-1's with my line manager in which we go through how my week has been, how my week ahead is looking, if I have too much work or not enough work. She also then helps me prioritise work when I need help and also checks in on my well-being. The apprenticeship team are also great at providing support, with regular communications to us and are always on hand should we need anything. There is also lots of work place support for all employees that we are able to access too.

We receive a fair amount of support from our training provider. However leading up to our qualifications they have been very vague and as such has made it quite stressful. If I could improve one thing about the apprenticeship, it would be the training provider. 50% of our work is not marked and the 50% of work that is marked is vague and hard to judge your progress. Not helpful!

I don't think the qualification has helped me perform better in my role. I feel the qualification is very basic stuff and is not teaching me anything knew. Even when it is, it is teaching my things that are not very applicable for my role. I don't feel I often put the theory I learn in to practice in my role as it is often irrelevant.

Yes there is always lots to get involved in. The apprenticeship team put on social events for us to go along too as well as things that our individual teams do. We also have function parties and office parties around Christmas. We have a free gym at our sites in 100VE and Kingston which is great to pop to off a lunch time or after work. They also run free classes. There is also things like apprentice ambassador opportunities as well as mentoring and other activities.

Yes

Beacuse it is a great company to work for. The attitude toward work/ life balance and well-being is a real positive. The company wide approach to agile working really helps maintain the work/ life balance, meaning we can work from the most appropriate location, even working from home! My team work from home 2 days a week, Kingston 2 days a week and 100VE 1 day a week. This means every day is different and helps keeps things exciting. They also pay well.

My advice would of course be to be yourself! Everyone who works at Unilever is SO different and I was so surprised by this when I first started at the business. There are not stereotypes at Unilever so its more important than ever to be yourself. Also read up on Unilever's sustainable living plan, this is something that is lived and breathed at Unilever and is the core to everything we do, no matter what team/ function you end up being based in!