This week is National Apprenticeship Week, designed to bring the whole apprenticeship community together to celebrate the impact of apprenticeships on individuals, employers and the economy. Fittingly, Travis Perkins reports on its commitment to apprenticeships with a focus on a newly-launched finance graduate scheme as part of its recruitment strategy.
The new three-year scheme is a Level 7 Accountancy Apprenticeship run in partnership with training provider Kaplan which has been developed for graduates wishing to pursue an accountancy qualification and who aim to progress into management at Travis Perkins on completion of the scheme.
Within its 30,000 strong workforce, Travis Perkins currently has over 800 colleagues engaged on programmes across 18 apprenticeship standards, so this new level will be the company’s 19th. This means one in every 50 colleagues across the Group’s 20+ businesses is an apprentice across a wide range of fields; from entry level roles to management in retail, supply chain, IT and HR and now finance.
Carol Kavanagh, Group HR Director explained: “We see apprenticeships as an important way to provide a structured career path at most levels of our business. In a sector that continues to evolve and where competition for strong candidates is stiff, we believe they are a great way to develop our talent pipeline and provide colleagues with the skills we need now and in the future.
“Since 2017, 271 colleagues have graduated from our apprenticeship programmes; 41% of these with distinction. This is a track record we are very proud of, and with the addition of this new Level 7 apprenticeship offering colleagues now have the opportunity to grow their career from branch counter right the way through to the boardroom with the wealth of internal upskilling programmes we have available.”
