We are proud to be recognised as an exemplar employer of Engineering Apprentices, which further enhances the excellent reputation that our apprenticeship scheme has.

Through benchmarking, we have also been able to identify areas to improve and have actively worked to implement those improvements. The fact that this is employer led and you get to hear the things that are working for other companies has been hugely beneficial to us.

You may think you are doing everything right, and you probably are to a degree, but you can always learn more, you can always grow. The Programme helps you to understand the gaps that you have.

We still have work to do but gaining the ‘Excellent Employer’ Kitemark status was nice recognition of what we already do well. Sharing best practice gives you a better understanding of what other companies are doing and pursuing Accreditation gives you the incentive to improve

Apprentices are the future of our workforce. The Kitemark demonstrates to external company’s and potential employees the commitment we have to our future workforce.

I would recommend the Best Practice Programme; it gives you a much more structured and focused approach to your apprenticeship scheme and provides us with a network of people that we can tap into to share ideas and create the best possible outcomes

We are proud of our success rate with apprentices, supporting their learning and helping them to grow as individuals, who are going to add real value and energy to the business. We are confident that working within this initiative, improving structure, using the online tools, and sharing best practice will enable us to further improve our approach.

The Kitemark and being recognised as an excellent employer should help us to attract local talent, keep us focused on improvement and ensure we continue to provide the best environment for our future apprentices

I’m really happy to have found something to help us build on our current apprenticeship scheme.

The tools are great and there are lots of them. Listening to the other members and watching the recordings really triggers thoughts and ideas about what we can do. There is such a willingness to share, it helps me to feel calm knowing there is so much help and support

At HCM, we are developing our Apprenticeship scheme as a direct result of being involved in the Best Practice Programme; learning from and sharing ideas with other manufacturing and engineering firms. Hearing from others has opened my eyes to different ways of approaching the role Apprentices could play in our business moving forward