Facilities services assistant Review

As a facilities management assistant my role is to maintain professional and provide customer sevice excellence when maintaining the buildings facilities. This means we are resposible for making sure the building is kept well maintained by keeping it clean, safe, making sure things such as lights are working, providing hospitality and setting up lecture rooms, dealing with daily post and remaining helpful.

Since starting this apprenticeship and working for the University the biggest skill i have gained is confidence. This is because people from all over the world come to the univeristy to study, visit and work and when they enter the univeristy buildings the first people they will meet is us. From this i meet loads of new people every day which is great and massively boost my confidence. I have also developed a skill of teamwork as working in Facilities management means i have had the opportunity to work with many different teams. I have also learnt how to deal with customers in the best way possible with customer service excellence which is a massive skill that i can use anywhere.

I really enjoyed this programme as i started at the same time as other apprentices and learnt about the job together which meant i was able to meet new people straight away. We were also taken away on a lot of training days which were really fun and enjoyable such as to the woods, to famous oxford building and training such as fire safety and first aid.

My programme was well organsied because i had good communication with my training provider and my managers/ trainers meaning that we were able to organsie very easily when we would next meet for training. It was also very well structured as i was put on a training programme in my first 3 weeks there; then i was trained on the buildings i would be working in; then when i had settled in i would start the coursework and my training provider would organsie with me to meet every 6 weeks to go over the work that i had done so far and what else i needed to do.

I recieved a huge amount of support from my employer and am still working for them now and they still provide a lot of support to me. They gave me a 3 week training programme so that they knew i would be safe and know a lot in my job. They would also regularly check how i am doing through pdrs and meetings and always remind me that whenever i had a problem i could always talk to them and know it would be kept quiet and that they were always there is i had problems with the apprenticeship which always made me feel so comforatble.

The lady who came to visit me every few weeks from my training provider was extremely supportive. She kept in contact with me throughout and made me feel that i could talk to her whenever i was struggling with the work and she was very helpful throughout the whole course.

My qualification helps me to perform better within my role because i learnt so much about the Univeristy and have so much knowledge about Facilities management. I feel comfortable to know that i can answer any questions about what we do to customers and that i am qualified to be able to complete any job in facilities management to the best standard possible.

The Univeristy provide a lot of free and available training courses to staff both online and outside of your role for a day away course; All you have to do is ask your manager and apply! We also have annaul away days which means we get a day away from work with other teams to have an activities day which is different each year.

Yes

I would and have already reccomended a univeristy apprenticeship to friends and family mainly for the reason that they make you feel so well looked after and provide a lot of staff benefits. They also provide you with all of the training you will need and help you out very well with your coursework when you need help.

When applying for a job/apprenticeship for the Univeristy of Oxford be the best you and yourself! I remember when they hired us they told us after that they saw something different and specail in each of us that would contribute to the univeristy ;so tell them what you can do and be proud of it! Another thing that is important is to know how important a customer is.