National Apprenticeship Week 2018: Julie’s story

National Apprenticeship Week takes place from 5 to 9 March 2018.

During the week employers and apprentices from across England come together to celebrate the success of apprenticeships while encouraging even more people to choose apprenticeships as a pathway to a great career.

We spoke to some of our staff who had taken part in an apprenticeship to see the benefits it held for them.

Julie Wilson, store manager for our receipt and distribution in Barnsley and Wakefield, completed an advanced apprenticeship in logistics to enhance her skills when she took on a new role. She explains:

“When I started my role at receipt and distribution, I felt a little bit out of my comfort zone. I worked with people who had a lot more experience and confidence around transport, and I found myself thinking that I wanted to learn more and know what they know.

“As the only person in the Trust who manages a 7.5 tonne truck, it was initially difficult to find a course to suit me as I have quite a different role to most people! However, learning and development managed to find an apprenticeship course that suited me and enabled me to learn more about transport.

“My apprenticeship lasted two years and involved completing coursework and carrying out some practical work where I showed my tutor what to do with our truck and forklift truck. I even passed first time while completing the apprenticeship, and now have a licence to enable me to drive a forklift truck and a class 2 heavy goods vehicle.

“The tutor also gave me lots of useful information outside of the course. The rules and regulations of logistics and transport change quite regularly so the tutor was very helpful in showing me where to find these details.

“I became the first person in the Yorkshire region to start and complete the advanced level 3 apprenticeship in logistics.

“I found that completing the apprenticeship gave me a lot more confidence. When I first started my role I sometimes felt out of my depth – I had the management experience but my knowledge of transport wasn’t as good as some of the people I worked with. Now I think that they respect me more as a manager as I have the same knowledge as them and have shown that I’m keen to learn more.

“I’m confident about my job and know it inside out now and it’s all because of my apprenticeship.”