MI Reporting Apprentice Review

I work in the Reward department in HR. My main role consists of running data reports for the business and calculating redundancies; I have been involved in a couple redundancy projects. I also complete basic admin work such as binding papers, handling post, mail merges and purchase orders. I interact with different internal employees mainly within HR and external people such as pension or benefit providers.

I have definitely picked up lots of new skills as before starting this apprenticeship I hadn't even worked in an office environment before. I have learned how to communicate effectively with employees and network with employees outside of HR. I have built up my excel skills by learning new formulas and macros. I've even used new programs such as successfactors, CASE and Winscp.

I enjoy my programme very much. I find the role suits me well and develops my computer skills daily. I like the idea of working and studying together and find that the course is relatively easy to follow and complete alongside my daily tasks at The AA. The only problem I would mention is that I struggle completing these tasks within the timescales as the QA classroom days always vary, meaning I could have 4 weeks to complete 3 tasks or 7 weeks. Its not consistent enough.

The programme is for the most part structured. I know when challenges and activities need to be completed by and when I need to attend classroom events, these dates are emailed to me at work. There are a couple issues I have noticed, as the Business Admin programme I am completing is relatively new, sometimes the providers, meaning the tutors and coaches can get a bit confused as to where we are in the programme. I sometimes have different tutors in the classroom and am constantly rearranging meetings with my skills coach. Some classroom sessions have been reorganised and I haven't had any physical communication from my skills coach or tutor to inform me, only an automated email which goes into my junk folder. I only hear this information from fellow apprentices on my course.

I receive plenty of help and support with my apprenticeship and my daily tasks at The AA. I am allocated a Friday afternoon and an hour at the end of each day to work on my apprenticeship work. When I am completing this I often ask questions surrounding information about The AA and get lots of helpful feedback, as no question is a stupid question. In particular my team, line manager and fellow apprenticeship help me the most.

The support is always there from QA, although I don't really need to reach out to them that often. I see my skills coach every 6-8 weeks and attend classroom events every 6-8 weeks, this is where my queries or questions get answered. If I do have anything I need help with they have an online forum/presence on their apprenticeship website.

I think that a lot of the skills and experience I need to complete my role I learn from The AA, just from learning from my colleagues. What I take away from my QA tasks help me build up my confidence in presenting and perfect my spellings and grammar. I complete all my tasks accurately and this helps build up my knowledge for the completion of my course.

I have been to one event, which was our HR Away day this helped improve my presentation skills and gave me a chance to meet everyone in our team in person. I have also joined the social committee, this is for the Basingstoke office and includes bake sales and raffles. I have also trained to be a fire warden.

Yes

I feel like they give their apprentices room to develop and grow within their role. They offer plenty of support, I've found that I can ask almost anyone for help and they would be willing to help whether it's my team, manager or HR. They positively promote apprentices regularly, which in my experience makes me feel worthwhile and work harder at my role.

To immerse yourself in culture, network with as many people as it's always helpful to have contacts for different things. To constantly work hard as this pays off in the long run, The AA congratulate and notice the small things you do for other people. To get used to working in a team as this is a daily necessity for The AA.