service delivery apprentice Review

My day to day role is currently working in the Copper AUX department for openreach, this involves orangising traffic management, scaffolding and tree cutting jobs so engineer can complete there jobs in a safe and efficient manor. This is one of 3 areas that we are covering in our apprentice, the other two being Dig and PST.

The apprenticeship that we are completing along side our work is a customer service once, I have 3 years customer service experience in prior roles so If I am being completely honest I currently don't think I have learnt much from the apprenticeship. Having not done a role within Openreach that as involved much speaking over the phone or to customers I've not had much opportunity to do much customer service either.

I am having to re take maths due to not being able to resource my certificate so am currently juggling doing the job, my apprentice work and revising maths, so at times I can find it quite challenging and a little stressful. I am enjoying my job but personally see the apprenticeship as more of a formality then something that is actually going to improve the work I can do.

I believe that our apprentice trainer does everything she can to ensure that the program is organised and we are kept up to date with what we need to do, where the structure breaks down a little bit is actually having time allotted to us by Openreach as this can sometimes prove difficult as when its busy we can sometimes struggle to get time to complete our work. We are supposed to get one day a month though this hasn't been the case so far.

I think that the support is sometimes good and when requested al ot of time in advance we are usually given the time, however sometimes it feels we have an up hill battle actually getting the time to do the work. This is a far cry to what was said to us in the interview process.

Our trainer is great and gets back to us quickly when we have any issues. When we require extra support on topics she will go out of her way to get extra support for that particular topic and that is greatly appreciated. Sometimes we don't have the time to actually do these extra classes but the effort is definitely put in.

I personally don't think that the qualification we are working towards is going to have much impact on the quality of my work personally, I have all ready done customer service roles and honed the skills I need to talk to people via phone calls and emails within them roles. I really appreciate the opportunity for this role but think for me personally I am not getting much out of the actual apprenticeship.

There are a lot of extra curricular activities available through work. They put a lot of effort into holidays (such as Christmas and Diwali) which is appreciated. Due to Covid 19 opportunities for extra curricular activities aren't as prevalent but this is completely out of there hands and I imagine once the world has got back to normalcy then a lot of activities will resume.

Yes

There is a lot of opportunities for progression within this company which is the main thing that draws me to Openreach. I think the apprenticeship scheme, though not ideal for my situation, is great for people starting there careers or having just left education. It is definitely one of if not the best companies I've worked for.

My main advice would be to ensure they really want the role at the end of it, the scheme takes 18 months and the wage for the amount of work that is required is quite low. It is important to be enthusiastic and to make effort to get on well with your team because having good people around you is really helpful when keeping up to date with not only your actual work but your apprentice course work to.