Finning launched its apprenticeship academy at its Cannock UK headquarters in 2007. This was an unusual step at the time, as most businesses take on apprentices in the role of employer, while an educational institution, usually a further education (FE) college delivers the academic learning and administers the qualification.
For Finning, however, it has yielded benefits, the company says.
Finning UK currently has 42 apprentices who study across two apprenticeships. The largest apprenticeship is the level 3 land-based service engineering technician, with
34 apprentices. The other apprenticeship is the level 3 maintenance and operations engineering technician, with eight apprentices. Of the 42 apprentices enrolled, 31 are aged 19 or older.
The academy was inspected by the government’s Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) last month and was rated ‘good’ across all six categories: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, apprenticeships, and overall effectiveness.
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Inspectors also noted how effective communication between instructors and line managers helped apprentices to improve, and how students with additional needs achieved as well as their peers.
Academy manager Craig Smallman said: “By keeping the whole apprenticeship program in-house, we can deliver academic learning in the best way to prepare our students for a career with us – enthusing people about engineering and addressing the ongoing skills shortages the industry faces.
“The results from Ofsted speak for themselves. The national retention figure for apprenticeship employers is around 56%, but at Finning we’ve retained all but one of our apprentices over the last two years who have gone on to secure a job with us. It’s a fantastic endorsement of the talented people we have working here and the focus we place on supporting them.”
With the program now in its 18th year, academy graduates now fulfil a variety of management positions in both engineering and non-engineering roles. This includes Craig Smallman himself, who started his career with Finning as an apprentice.
He added: “Over the next few years, we plan to double in size and this year’s intake will be the biggest ever. The ages of our current students range from 16 to 53, we are a disability confident employer, one in six of our apprentices are female and we would like it to be more. Finning is an amazing place to work with opportunities to travel all over the world and work with great people. We have sites right across the UK and Ireland so whoever and wherever you are, if you would like to work with these amazing machines, we would love to hear from you.”
