Argenta Global Lead Engineer Martyn Forrester (left) is being mentored on his Graduate Apprenticeship in Engineering, Design and Manufacturing by Head of Engineering Richard McGowan.
Courier Country firms benefitting from Graduate Apprenticeships are urging others in the region not to miss the July 31 deadline to apply for their own.
Developed by Skills Development Scotland, with support from the European Social Fund, Graduate Apprenticeships (GAs) are a new type of degree combining work-based learning and high-quality education. Businesses can hire a new member of staff as a GA or sponsor an existing employee.
Current staff can be anyone as relevant work experience and desire to learn outweighs formal education, so non-technical employees can move into a new area of work such as management or IT. It’s also an opportunity to bring new knowledge and skills into your business and attract new talent as an alternative to traditional graduate schemes.
Graduate Apprenticeships benefit employers in many ways – staff put their learning into action on work-based projects and the training improves their ability, engagement and productivity. GAs also help companies future-proof their technical talent pipelines – IT and engineering professionals are in high demand and apprentices become loyal, long term employees fulfilling the needs of your recruitment and staff development strategy.
Benefits
Upskilling existing employees not only improves their personal development but the firm benefits from their higher productivity and expertise and improves its retention of talent. Senior staff also get to develop their CPD in mentoring skills.
Graduate Apprenticeships are fully-funded – the only cost to companies is the employee’s salary – and the employee is only at the university one day a week. The GA Programme has already established a 100% track record on student retention in its first year – with no dropouts and no failures.
Animal pharmaceuticals firm Argenta Global in Dundee is already enjoying the benefits of Lead Engineer Martyn Forrester having completed his first year of a Graduate Apprentice in Engineering, Design and Manufacture at the University of Dundee.
His mentor, Richard McGowan, the Head of Engineering, says: “The business has benefitted from developing Martyn’s skills for its future growth and expansion while supporting skill retention. The timeframe for attaining a degree is excellent, so this will be an ongoing development programme.
“The University of Dundee is ideally located for us, has excellent infrastructure for the development of engineers in many different disciplines and maintains a good link between workplace and university learning.”
Access XL Graduate Apprentice Rhys Wood (right) talks his mentor Farid Arvani through a schematic drawing he’s worked on.
Access XL Ltd, a tail lift manufacturer in Forfar, is seeing benefits from Support Engineer Rhys Wood having completed his first year of a Graduate Apprenticeship in Engineering Design and Manufacture at the University of Dundee.
General Manager Farid Arvani says: “We put Rhys on the Graduate Apprenticeship so he can develop his analytical and engineering skills and improve on CAD modelling. The technical and business topics covered on the GA are helping Rhys take on more responsibilities and enable him to assist the team to provide better solutions.
“We chose the University of Dundee because its Graduate Apprenticeship programme is comprehensive – covering management, business and technical skills all in one. We’ve also had a good experience working with the university on research programmes with its graduate students.”
Graduate Apprentice Leyton Grant (right) talks his mentor Craig Daly through how he’s applied the knowledge gained on his GA to a project he’s working on.
Perth & Kinross Council is also seeing the benefits of having a Graduate Apprentice studying at the University of Dundee. Professional Trainee Leyton Grant is studying Civil Engineering at The University of Dundee and has completed his first year.
His mentor, Senior Engineer Craig Daly, says: “The Graduate Apprenticeship has enabled us to recruit a member of staff who’s dedicated and committed to pursuing Civil Engineering as a career, which is a challenging sector to recruit for.
“From Leyton’s perspective, it’s given him the opportunity to get a mix of academic and practical learning which will be invaluable to him going forward in his career.
“We chose to do this through the University of Dundee as it has an excellent reputation for working with organisations to support their requirements. We hope to support more staff through GAs and would recommend them to other employers.”
Lisa Cathro, has applied to do a Graduate Apprenticeship in Business Management at the University of Dundee.
Lisa Cathro, owner of St Andrews café & takeaway social enterprise Zest, has applied to do a Graduate Apprenticeship in Business Management at the University of Dundee so she can formalise the business knowledge she’s picked up in the10 years since it opened and support her staff’s learning better. She’s being supported by her mentor Ian Hunt from Training Solutions.
Lisa says: “I found out about Graduate Apprenticeships after getting involved with the SDS Skills for Growth initiative – I was looking for ways to develop not only myself but also my team.
People development
“I knew nothing about running a business when we first started. My passion is people development, primarily by working with those with barriers to employment, but latterly I’ve enjoyed doing consultancy helping startups avoid the mistakes I made.
“I decided to do a GA in Business Management to further my consultancy but also to increase my skills, including social media – allowing me to cascade knowledge to my team and their development. I have a lot of experience in strategy and business planning but not the theory behind it.
“I’ve mentored 10 Modern Apprentices through my own business. By participating at this higher level myself it will allow me to better support my own team in the future should they want to continue on to a degree-level qualification.”
The University of Dundee offers Graduate Apprenticeships in IT Management for Business, Software Development, Engineering Design and Manufacture, Civil Engineering and Business Management. The deadline to apply for them is July 31.
For more information about the Graduate Apprentices available at the University of Dundee and how to apply, go to https://www.dundee.ac.uk/industry/graduateapprenticeships/