Regulatory Development Manager Review

As a regulatory development manager, a large part of my role consists of horizon scanning for changes in regulation and determining whether they have potential to impact LBG's business. This requires a lot of stakeholder management to know which colleague to go to depending on the regulation topic.

Many new skills learnt. In particular, leadership skills and the new approaches to managing a team e.g. servant leadership. Data analytics as well was a very useful skill to learn. I think most importantly, learning academic rigour and the need to validate and assess sources before using these to make conclusions. This is particularly helpful in my role which involves reading a lot of new developments to determine whether there is impact to LBG.

I thoroughly enjoyed the programme, so many parts of it lived up to expectations and surpassed them in many ways. Having been out of education for so long, the initial feeling I had when entering a lecture hall or tutorial class was that this was great. It was just enjoyable to sit and learn all these new topics and talk about them with the lecturers and fellow apprentices - you genuinely felt like you were on a journey with others. Some subjects were more enjoyable than others - I particularly liked leadership, sustainability and international busines but was less interested in marketing and economics. Despite this, the vast majority of subjects were delivered to a high standards and where problems arose, the university were quick to resolve and did so in consultation with the students in my group which was nice to see.

As noted before, it was structured well. Years 1 through 2 there were no issues but things got a little confusing in year 3 when there was a change made to the way the research proposal in year 3 and honours research project in year 4 would work. Given the amount of work involved alongside full time working, the university staff took the view of moving the proposal from year 4 to year 3 to aid students. While this was appreciated, the general feedback was that the modules at the start of year 4 were quite light and could have been swapped with the modules at the end of the year which were heavier going (Logistics and Sustainable Business). The way they were structured meant we had two quite involved modules with assignments to do while also having to pick up the dissertation - which was less fresh in mind given the proposal was done in year 3. There was also the intention to do a research project showcase at the end of year 4 which would have a minor contribution to marks for the Prof Practice module but a date for this wasn't agreed until very late on, to the point none of our employers/sponsers could make it which was a shame and the idea was shelved. I think this was a good idea because it would of been nice to hear about other students work and also for our employers and supervisors to hear and see what we'd done as the project was linked to our business as well. I've given feedback that they should try to do this again but if possible, arrange earlier in the year to give people time to arrange travel.

Lots. I moved role in 2020, so mid-way through the apprenticeship and despite this I continued to receive support from my new manager. They had a great interest in the programme and really helped with the research project element in the final year. They helped by arranging introductions with senior stakeholders who I intended to interview along with members of their team.

Again, this was great. The university faculty staff changed quite a bit especially the programme lead. We had one in the first year, then a different one over year 2 and then someone else over year 3-4. This was a bit strange to me and the rest of the group but I'm not sure if this is the norm at universities. I would say the second two supervisors in Kingsley Omeile and Andrew Bratton were fantastic and very supportive. They had to be flexible while also being strict to certain aspects like deadlines and marking criteria - but did a good job at making this clear and being balanced. They were abley supported by Stevie Kearney who covered the admin things up until he left in year 3. He was great also and I believe had he still been there in year 4, the issue with the Research showcase event wouldn't have happened.

I think it certainly heps by learning the skills I mentioned in the first q around leadership, data and academic rigour. I still find myself using some of the approaches I picked up through the course when writing business communications. I think there were certainly some modules that I can't easily relate to in my role e.g. marketing. While it was beneficial to have an understanding of these, I don't find myself drawing on any of the models or concepts I learned for those which is why they're less memorable to menow.

There are a wide array of activities available at LBG. I'm guilty of not getting involved in these due to other commitments at the moment but it's something I'd like to do when things become less hectic with the cost of living crisis and other issues I'm facing.

Yes

On the subject of this apprenticeship, it's only fair I would recommend to friends because the course was so good and I thoroughly enjoyed it for the reasons mentioned previosuly. That being said, I would be lying if I said I'm happy at Lloyds just now. The company has made significant changes recently to it's approach on flexible working and compressed hours which I totally disagree with. What is more frustrating is the manner in which the CEO has announced these changes with very little empathy to the swathes of colleagues this will impact (disproportionately women) - which is very disappointing.

Please spend time to get to know the different areas within LBG. It is a huge group with lots of interesting roles and divisions. Much of this info can be found on the hiring pages of LBG. It's really important to understand where you're interests lie whether dealing with customers or commercial business clients or in other departments like risk, cyber or data analytics. This way you get to know about the business before applying but also have a good idea about which area you'd like to go into and why.