Commercial Apprentice Review

To assist Commercial Managers in their day to day activities regarding NEC3 contracts, cost valuations, assessing the time sheets submitted by the contractors, all admin work, attending meetings and taking minutes as well as organising the meeting and booking rooms, updating CEMAR with responses from the Commercial Managers and ensuring they do not run over the allotted time limit.

I have improved on my existing excel skills, I am able to create much more functional tables and charts which include formulas. My meeting and minute taking skill have improved and have learnt how to use CEMAR to submit responses to contractors as well as post early warnings and compensation events and create a monthly report from the data.

The programme that I am currently on provides a wide range of opportunities for me to work on and gain a variety of experience and knowledge which can be used across the business. I enjoy working with all the people currently on the project as they are all very friendly and happy to help with any queries.

As it is a large company the apprentices can easily be forgotten or seemed to be brushed aside when issues arise, we have had multiple issues, as we were the first intake of this particular apprenticeship scheme, that we have made them aware of and had to chase relentlessly for any response or a resolution to the issue that has arisen.

As we are the first intake of apprentices on this scheme, it has been a pilot scheme. But it has not been organised or structure well and there has been multiple issues that we have had to raise multiple times to even get a response, and when the issue is acknowledged there is often a long delay before anything is done to rectify.

As we have moved through multiple departments, the level of training has depended on who is our manager within that department. Overall, I have had a decent level of training but we were often left to find out what training we needed ourselves, which when we first started in the job was difficult as we were unaware of what training we needed for which systems.

Each apprentice has been assigned a personal mentor, this was designed so that any personal or sensitive issues that needed to be discussed goes through one individual that knows the apprentice. This was helpful when we first started as if there were any issues or difficulties we had we knew who to contact for clarification.

Now that we have been working for the company for over a year and are about to complete our first qualification we are working to the level of a Commercial Assistant, rather than a Commercial Apprentice. However our salary does not come anywhere close to that of a Commercial Assistant and does not reflect the level of effort or work we produce.

There are multiple opportunities outside of work that are for employees to participate in, there is also sports teams or events that emails are sent to everyone, giving anyone the chance to attend in evenings or weekends. This helps to improve the relationships between employees and in turn improves the work that is produced during working hours.

No

The only reason I wouldn't recommend EDF Energy to a friend is because the experience I have had trying to sort out multiple issues with our apprenticeship has made it difficult for me to recommend. I'm certain other job roles are much more organised, but for this apprenticeship we've had a constant stream of difficulties that have not be resolved or have taken months to be even recognised.

I would give advice to make sure you know what the entire job role entails, when joining this apprenticeship all of us didn't have enough information on the role and it has lead some apprentices to not want to continue as they were unaware of what the actual job included, which has made it difficult for them to fully enjoy.