Travis Perkins has showcased its award-winning apprenticeship scheme to a senior delegation from the Chinese Government during a visit to its Northampton Head Office.
Vice Minister for the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of China, Tang Tao, was joined by his ministerial team and the Head of Education and Skills at the Department for International Trade, Liu Jing, to find out how Travis Perkins has developed its scheme.
The scheme currently has over 650 apprentices nationwide, working across a wide range of programmes from retail and digital marketing to sales and operations.
The delegation was said to be particularly interested to hear from Sam Crichton, an apprentice who was recently promoted to Assistant Branch Manager for Benchmarx, part of the Travis Perkins Group.
Sam explained how the modular-based development plan has been tailored specifically to him and his branch needs and has enabled him to build the relevant knowledge and skills as well as maximise the social, business and personal value of his apprenticeship.
Travis Perkins CEO, John Carter, who started his career as an apprentice, commented: “Our philosophy is very much that it’s our people who make our business great. We have an innovative and visionary training and development programme in place to support this belief, and we were delighted to be able to share our insight with the senior delegation from China to support the ideas they are developing for their own people and also exchange reciprocal ideas for the future. We are honoured that the Vice Minister and his team chose to visit Travis Perkins.”
Vice Minister for the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of China, Tang Tao, said: “The apprenticeship system at Travis Perkins is impressive. Enterprises in China and the UK could strengthen their exchanges in apprenticeships”.
The visit was coordinated by WorldSkills UK in collaboration with The Education and Skills Funding Agency and Department for Education as part of a wider educational visit to:
- Explore the UK policy and practice on apprenticeships and technical and education especially how to improve employer engagement
- To deepen the understanding and collaboration of skills training between China and UK
- To further progress joint working between WorldSkills UK and WorldSkills China in the run up to the international skills competition in Shanghai in 2021.
