Why do you feel so strongly about promoting and celebrating apprenticeships?
Apprenticeships offer excellent opportunities for people to develop confidence, skills and realise their potential throughout their working lives. Moreover, employers can use them to identify and develop an effective competent workforce that will be closely matched to their needs and organizational culture. The celebration of apprenticeships with awards like this are essential for highlighting the real possibilities apprenticeships bring individually and collectively.
Why do you feel proud to sponsor Apprenticeship Champion of the Year category?
The RAF is immensely proud to recognise the unsung champions at the heart of successful promotion of high-quality apprenticeships in England through its sponsorship of the Apprenticeship Champion of the Year Award. The effort of those highly dedicated, talented people who give their all to promote, design and deliver apprenticeship standards and schemes is often overlooked by many and we believe the award will encourage wider awareness of their efforts
What benefits has your organisation seen as a result of employing apprentices?
The RAF is celebrating the centenary of the establishment of its Apprenticeships scheme in 1920. To achieve the uniquely specialized and demanding roles it is called upon to deliver the Service requires a highly skilled and motivated workforce and must deliver world class training to encourage the recruitment of high calibre people. It has deliberately chosen to deliver apprenticeships to over 90% of its entrants, confident that we offer our next generation an opportunity that is second to none for their Service career and long-term civilian employment opportunities beyond.
Spanning 24 different trades, with over 3000 apprentices on programme at any one time, apprenticeships have allowed the RAF to recruit many with underlying aptitude to succeed, rather than a strict reliance on qualifications, and unleash their potential.
What message would you give to potential applicants?
We are delighted to have the opportunity to celebrate the achievement of the many Apprenticeship Champions across the country. If you are aware of colleagues or others that are doing outstanding work to promote awareness of the excellence and opportunities offered by apprenticeships should nominate them for the Apprenticeship Champion award. Those who receive such a nomination should be very proud of that recognition and take forward their supporting information.to allow their example to be more widely known. We wish them all the best of luck.
