HR Apprentice Review

HR Support, note taking, data analytics, supporting employees through 1-1's, ad hoc queries, drafting employment paper work, program coordinator for internal trainings and development programs.

Many skills have been developed and learnt, I continue to develop my soft skills: Communication, confidence, active listening, ability to give and receive feedback etc. Hard skills: supporting employees in people related matters, excel skills for analytical reporting, hr consulting / advisory etc.

From a business perspective, I enjoy it wholeheartedly. The connections I've built, the things I've learnt, the job satisfaction, support from management and peers. From a college perspective, it was a rocky start, the first 6-12 months the assessor was new to the role and we also had a change in tutor twice, which led to some miscommunication and limited guidance. However, this has improved and the college lead for HR support has been more involved and supportive, she is busy however so it can be up and down on the support you receive and you do have to be quite self reliant at times whilst you wait for responses.

It is well structured, you can strike a balance between the CIPD work and Apprenticeship work but that does rely on your ability to manage this autonomously with the support and guidance of your college and line manager. My line manager is very supportive and flexible, which I think is quite commonplace at Cummins and makes it more manageable balancing the work.

A great deal of support is received, my line manager aims to ensure I am doing work that connects with my college program, links me in with relevant stakeholders and works with me to help me develop and identify development opportunities.

It's been up and down as mentioned, in the beginning it was a good introduction but this slowed down and the assessor who did site visits was new to the role and could not always guide me properly or answer my questions. I didn't understand I did not have a portfolio to complete until 4 months in for example. It did improve and she was kind and supportive, just wasn't equipped with the HR knowledge required, the lead on the program was better placed to answer HR queries but can be busy and difficult to get clear responses from. The EPA was unclear for a long time and we had to be very vocal about this to get it explained correctly to us, eventually. The college tutor changed 2-3 times, luckily the third tutor was wonderful from CIPD perspective and eventually things did improve but it has been quite the roller coaster.

There are a lot of aspects from the CIPD qualification and apprenticeship framework that link into my role, by linking the work I am doing with this, it helps me gain a deeper understanding or maybe the background behind a task, helping me understand the purpose of it.

Lots to get involved with, we are currently doing 'Move Europe' encouraging employees to exercise and many do so together, bike rides, walks etc. There are also employee resource groups you can join such as PRIDE, WEN (Women's empowerment Network) etc and also EEC opportunities to volunteer (full pay) in the local community. Various networking events are held, typically virtually with the majority of office based roles being hybrid but some can be done in person, you can build many connections in the office.

Yes

Very supportive, great exposure to various areas of HR and the business, I align with the goals of the company; Planet 2050, Destination Zero and the values. The culture is great, I find everyone to be very kind and supportive, and you can gain great experience across projects, teams and the entire business.

Do you research, visit the website, know a little about our goals; Planet 2050, Destination Zero for example. Use the STAR method, there will likely be situation based questions, make sure you highlight what YOU did in that STAR method and how you drove those actions.