Higher Ops apprentice Review

• Spend 80% of my time doing work for my company and I get 20% to work towards my degree. • I am working towards a digital and technology solutions (data analytics and data science) degree with Warwick university. I have university block weeks where we go to our university for 1 or 2 weeks. • As part of my apprenticeship I get to rotate around all the different teams/departments in my business area, every 9-12 months. • Currently in a complaints analysis team, where we review complaints coming into our business area, which includes many products and we look for trends and make recommendations based off of them e.g.re assigning training, sending out communications to our operational teams with reminders and things to look out for etc. We also work closely with the quality assurance team (QA), where we complete a second line of checks to ensure we agree with callouts from QA and also send out feedback and requests for remediation work to the operational telephony teams. • I have many different tasks (which include a lot of complaints analysis work; creating presentations with my findings which are shared with others higher in the hierarchy e.g. directors on a weekly/monthly basis etc.) and so I have to prioritise and manage my time really well in order to meet deadlines. • I work closely with my manager and colleagues on my team on a daily and have to interact with people from different departments and of different levels of the hierarchy (e.g. Assistant Vice Presidents, Vice Presidents etc.) as part of my role. • I am responsible for my own work and meeting deadlines; providing daily updates on progress and challenges to my manager; building my own networking relationships; completing my apprentice objectives; attending my university block weeks; completing university work.

I have developed a lot of skills in my time so far at Barclays such as: • Presentation skills- through leading a lot of meetings and presentations. When I first joined I was very shy and quiet and now I feel I have definitely come a long way in terms of my confidence, which was developed over time and with a lot of practise. • Communication- as I have had to communicate with my stakeholders on a daily in order to do my work effectively. Have learnt to communicate challenges as well as progress in order to resolve issues quickly and get the support and guidance I need. • Time management- I think this is one of the key skills I have developed as I have had to juggle several tasks at the same time and also plan my study time out. • Organisational skills- I’ve found it very important to plan my week out and I found this very useful especially when it came to planning out revision and time I need to study, and I started to make a study plan so that I don’t overwhelm myself with all my work and so that I can get everything done on time. • Writing emails- when I started I always used to hesitate before sending out emails and always asked someone to check them as in previous jobs I never actually had to write my own emails as we could only send out templates, and now I feel confident in writing my own professional emails and getting my message across efficiently. New skills: • Excel formulas- working on excel spreadsheets is a key part of my role work, and I have created automated spreadsheets by applying a lot of formulas, creating pivot tables and also instructions so that others on my team can benefit from this as well. This was something I had to learn mostly from scratch as I had never had to use formulas before- I had to do a lot of research and sometimes reached out to some of my colleagues when it came to more complicated formulas. • Report reading – The above has really helped my report reading skills as well because I have to work with large reports on a daily which have a lot of information in them and so I found them quite hard to read and analyse initially and so this has really helped to break them down and makes it easier to understand. • Java- as part of my degree I had to complete a module on java programming and data structures. I had never done any sort of programming before so it was tough but interesting and then I had to apply my knowledge in an assignment where I made a scrabble game. • Minute taking- I had never had to take minutes or type them up in a professional format before and now I feel confident enough to do this for important calls and to share them with stakeholders.

• I enjoy learning something new in my degree, but as it is challenging as it was something I had never done before, but I see it as great opportunity which will open up a lot more doors in the future. • I enjoy the new sense of ownership with my work. • I enjoy the fact that my role includes quite a bit of variety, in terms of which products’ complaints I am analysing and even the sort of work I am completing such as creating presentations, getting figures, QA work etc. • I enjoy feeling like the work I do actually counts towards something and is making a difference to the business (e.g. finding trends and making recommendations of how to resolve issues) as I find this to be quite rewarding. • I like having the opportunity to try different departments out and try different things to see what I enjoy the most. • Overall I would say I do enjoy my apprenticeship

• I would say it is very well organized overall, in terms of our block weeks and the approach to our job roles. • I like how we have monthly cohort meetings with our career coach, where we discuss upcoming deadlines for our apprentice objectives and share other updates and events etc. • We were set up with a career coach who we have 121s with every 6 weeks- I have found this to be very useful. • I did like how they had set us up with an apprentice/ team buddy to support us. • Also, I like the structure of the programme because we get to spend 9-12 months in each team/department and then get the choice to rotate to another- so at the end of the 4 year programme we would’ve tried at least 4 different teams. • I am happy with the study time I get as my manager is quite flexible with this and she also is very supportive of my degree and has given us opportunities to make my role more relevant my degree e.g. I am currently working on a project which involves some coding and creating something that will be very beneficial to our team. • University wise- I prefer the structure of our modules- where we complete a block for a module, then the assignment for it and then the exam, as this means we can concentrate on one module at a time. • I think my team is well organised because most members deal with certain products, whereas I currently have the opportunity to support wherever there is demand, and my manager communicates this really well and we have a clear structure in terms of when figures need completing and when our work is due.

• Barclays are very supportive and they have many different support channels. • I have monthly 121s with my manager- where we discuss progress and challenges. • I have daily calls with my team which allows me to get support on my work. • I have an apprentice/team buddy who supports me with any advice I need; my apprentice objectives and also supports me with my personal development. • We have 121s with our career coach every 6 weeks, but she always has her door open for us if we need to speak to her about anything at any other time as well. • We have access to AXA medical care, where we can get extra support for personal reasons e.g. through AXA counselling. • We have regular meetings with one of our programme leaders, where we can discuss how we’re getting on with our roles and studying. • At Barclays we have a “be well” portal which everyone has access to and there is information on absolutely everything from sleeping well, eating well and dealing with stress and they have a lot of helpful tips on there for self-help. • We have access to “plural sight” which has thousands of online courses on there (e.g. excel, java, presentation skills etc.), which can support us with our roles and also our own personal development. • Also, I have found all the people I work with to be very supportive, and everyone is definitely willing to go out of their way to help you.

• The university side of my apprenticeship was to initially include face to face learning but due to COVID, my cohort were only able to visit campus once for our block week and since then we have been doing online learning instead on Microsoft teams, which at first impacted support, but they really took our feedback onboard and make themselves more available to answer our questions throughout. • Our programme leader at Warwick is great, he is very supportive and was offering weekly 121s throughout our first module for extra support which was very helpful. Even though he hasn’t been our lecturer throughout he has still put in 121s with us to check up on us and see how we are getting on. • The lecturers who lead the modules have been great so far, they respond fairly quickly and answer any questions we have or schedule 121s or team calls with us too. • It is a challenging degree, but it is interesting and will open us up to a lot more opportunities in the future.

• The teams I have worked in so far haven’t been relevant to my degree as they don’t involve any coding or anything, and so it doesn’t help on a daily basis. • However, my current manager allowed us to propose ideas for new projects that include putting the theory we have learnt into practice, which I think it great, because it involves coding and creating a web application that will be accessible for everyone on my team. • I don’t feel that I know more about my job/role/industry from my qualification so far, as I have only just completed my first year recently, but I think it has made me think in a more innovative way, in terms of how things can be done and automated to make processes more efficient and I plan on building on this further as I gain more confidence in the skills gained from my ongoing degree.

There is always so much going on at Barclays. Some activities I have attended include: o Yoga o Meditation o Quizzes o Christmas events We also get offers on a range of classes through our Barclays rewards such as gym classes; coding classes etc. In terms of citizenship- we have an intranet hub which includes many listings of citizenship activities we can get involved with such as mentoring in schools and you can even post your own to get others involved.

Yes

It is a great company to work for, the main thing i like about them is how supportive they are. They care about your wellbeing and they encourage you to take care of yourself. As an apprentice i also believe my personal development is greatly invested in and there are so many opportunities available.

• Be yourself; • Research our website to read more about our culture to see whether you feel you'd be a good fit; • Write a cover letter; • If you have never completed any online tests before e.g. Numerical and literacy tests- find some practice ones online as there 2 tests that applicants must pass; • My assessment day included team and individual activities; a 121 interview and a short test. • Be flexible and open to all opportunities- as an apprentice there is so much scope and so much to get involved in;