IT Support Review

My role is in IT Support, to both live issues and project work. I am assigned ongoing tasks, for which I report to various business stakeholders, and can work on live issues as they happen.

I have learnt how to develop and program code, navigate a 'green screen' operating system, learnt about the IT project lifecycle, gained a greater understanding of the banking business and further developed my inter-personal and communicative skills.

The team I work in is very supportive and always willing to aid me, if needed, to complete my tasks. The company culture is different to any other company I have worked for before, as it is such a large group, but it communicates its aims and objectives clearly and regularly looks to engage its workforce in the bigger picture.

In my current role I feel valued as LBG has invested a great amount of time and money into my training programme in order to train me to become a fully-fledged developer on their platforms. The help and support given my my immediate co-workers has added to this sentiment; that my being here is appreciated.

As we were the first group of apprentices to enter the IT organisation, it was somewhat slow to start some of the training modules as the framework had not been fully implemented. As I approached the end of my training course, I found that they had learnt from some of these mistakes but that there was still the occcasional issue regarding communication and milestones.

My training provider, Learn Direct, assigned a very supportive assessor who ensured that I was kept up to date on my progress, encouraged any extra work that could be done to complete the apprenticeship sooner and worked at my pace of training which enabled the early completion of the apprenticeship. My assessor was easily contactable at all times, which helped greatly. Unfortunately, one aspect of the apprenticeship was cumbersome, where, my GCSES were 4 months 'out of date' so I had to retake a Maths and English exam to prove my skills. This task was hampered by the fact that the nearest test centre was over 1 1/2 hours away and it took a number of months to convince them to allow me to take the exams on my assessor's laptop.

Over the course of my apprenticeship, my task manager has been wary of the work I needed to undertake to complete my apprenticeship and allowed me time to do this. If I had any questions, they were happy to answer them in the context of the company and my role.

The salary meets my daily costs.

There are many voluntary opportunities which I have pursued outside of work, after being made aware of them through work. I also organise sports and social events for the team and myself to attend outside of work hours.

Yes

Lloyds Banking Group has given me the opportunity to have a career in an area that I did not think I would be able to work without a degree. I would recommend LBG to a friend because I enjoy the work atmosphere, the general direction the company is going and the prospects that lie ahead once you have joined the company.

Be prepared for a lengthly onboarding process, due to the time needed to check your credentials and employment history before taking you on in a secure banking environment.