April Apprentice of the Month - Alexia Lear
We are happy to announce the winner of the LDN Apprentice of the Month is Alexia @ Bloomsbury!
Nominated by LDN Publishing Skills Coach, Helen - Alexia has had an incredible impact in her role since joining the Bloomsbury team last year as an LDN Publishing Assistant Apprentice. She has recently received the winning title of ‘The Times Children's Book of the Week’ on her first-ever campaign as well!
Check out Alexia's winning Apprentice of the Month nomination along with our other fantastic nominations below!
Alexia’s Skills Coach:
I am excited to nominate Alexia Lear who works in children's marketing at Bloomsbury. Alexia is one of our youngest apprentices, coming straight from school into an industry used to graduates. Right from the start, she got stuck into her role in an enthusiastic and matter-of-fact way, impressing colleagues and me with her positive, can-do attitude.
Early in the programme Alexia delivered to our Live Session for her apprentice peers a fabulous presentation on the influence of BookTok in the industry, so professionally designed I thought she must have used templates. It turns out that Alexia is a naturally gifted designer who is now turning out work at Bloomsbury that colleagues assume has been done professionally out-of-house, and she has become very much in demand helping out colleagues and impressing authors and everyone around her!
Alexia works hard on her apprenticeship tasks, is beautifully on target, and produces work to a great standard. She's also very modest, just keen to learn and develop and do her best. She is a fabulous example of how talent can be nurtured young in the publishing industry, and traditional paths need not be trodden.
Alexia’s Line Manager:
Energy: Ever since meeting Alexia for the first time during the Apprenticeship interview process I have been continuously impressed by her energy and positivity. The high energy that Alexia displayed at the beginning of her apprenticeship has remained throughout her time here and she is rarely seen without a smile on her face, even during virtual calls and meetings where peak energy levels can be harder to maintain.
Alexia is a wonderful addition to the team and her upbeat personality and positive presence is always felt when we’re in the office. She has also been trusted to represent our team and provide assistance at various external events (social media filming/stock signing with authors etc) and conferences, which isn’t necessarily something I would have expected at her level but she shines no matter what situation she is placed in and I am continuously receiving excellent feedback re Alexia’s attitude and impressive work ethic following such events.
Enthusiasm: The enthusiasm that Alexia has displayed since joining our team and been a joy to witness. She is always happy and willing to get fully stuck into whatever is asked of her, across a varied range of tasks and requests that can come in via our wider team of both trade and education marketers and publicists. No matter the task, we all know we can rely on Alexia to approach it with gusto and turn around something of brilliant quality, often in a very speedy fashion. Her ability to multi-task and prioritise is also exceptional.
Alexia conducts herself as though she’s been working within a large team/office environment for years – you would never know that she joined us straight after completing her A-Levels (having taken her exams the same day as interviewing for this position) with very limited previous experience within the working environment. She certainly exhibits maturity and confidence beyond her years.
Willingness To Learn: I’ve been really impressed with how Alexia has managed to balance the workload and studying that is required as part of the LDN apprenticeship alongside the vast amount of projects and tasks that are sent her way via the M&P team. Her willingness to learn and ability to do so incredibly quickly is yet another of her many attributes - as result Alexia is continuously developing her understanding and skillset – very often only needing to be shown how to best complete a task once.
Whilst Alexia is constantly learning as part of the Apprenticeship course and from myself/members of the wider team, she is also clearly taking the initiative to teach and develop skills on her own too, her brilliant use of Photoshop and the self-taught skills she is now demonstrating is a great example of this.
Ability To Take Feedback: From as far back as the tasks set during the interview process Alexia’s ability and desire to take on feedback in order to better her performance and understanding has been notable. As the months have gone on her work is at such a standard that it requires little feedback and almost all of the feedback we do receive from the wider team is incredibly positive. Any constructive feedback provided only ever needs to be given once as Alexia will clearly keep it in mind when approaching similar tasks again and learn from what has been explained to her. This is another reason why we can all trust Alexia to complete tasks at a high standard and why she has taken on a greater amount of work than I would have imagined possible to pass on to an apprentice.
Propensity To Take Action: Hopefully from my feedback above it is clear that Alexia is an incredibly hardworking, efficient and impressive individual who has fitted into the team perfectly. I am amazed at how she has juggled the Apprenticeship alongside the constant flow of work she is completing for the team and there is no way this level and standard of work could be maintained or achieved without an individual having the ‘propensity to take action’ which she displays day in day out.
Alexia isn’t shy to use her initiative and to seek out additional work/learning opportunities either, which again is another great trait! I have been particularly impressed with how Alexia has taken the lead in a recent ‘Apprentice Swap’ with a fellow apprentice. She has been incredibly organised and flexible when trying to arrange the days and setting tasks. Alexia has also provided feedback on the tasks completed by her peer which again is very impressive and evidence of excellent development on her side.
Example of an outstanding piece of work: It’s almost impossible to pick just one piece of work as an example here so I’d like to extend on the point I made above about Alexia’s design skills. Alexia has a wonderful eye for detail and design and during her time with us, she has nurtured and applied this talent to create some stand-out pieces of work on both Canva and Photoshop, ranging from social media assets, event invitations, Amazon A+ assets to important PowerPoint presentations to name a few.
The quality of her design work is now at such a level that her skills are being utilised further by the wider M&P team, meaning that we are not needing to engage the in-house marketing team or freelancers to do certain design work – this not only saves the team time but is ultimately saving the company money too – double win!
Our first runner-up for this month is lvl 4 Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Apprentice Chloe Lisley @ Medik8! Chloe was nominated by LDN Skills Coach, Geeta, with feedback provided by line manager Alex.
Chloe’s Skills Coach:
Chloe has settled into her role quickly and has a very busy work schedule working on a variety of projects. Chloe is fully up to date with her training plan, and her apprenticeship tasks and completes her work to a very high standard.
Chloe had only recently joined the programme and traveled from outside of London to attend our CR&S in-person Development Day. She made amazing contributions to the day and she thoroughly enjoyed the connections she made with like-minded apprentices.
Chloe also spends time in the summer carrying out surveys voluntarily for the Floristic Wildlife Trust, whose mission is to protect and restore nature and are committed to the recovery of nature and combatting the climate emergency, this shows how passionate Chloe is about sustainability and making a difference to our planet. Chloe is just amazing and truly deserves this nomination.
Chloe’s line manager:
Chloe has an incredible desire to learn and she throws herself into each task with great enthusiasm. From Excel formulas to recyclability rules, and chemical regulations, she has leaned into any project area I have asked her to look at. From the beginning, I could trust Chloe to get on with the job. She is organised, is able to grasp the job at hand quickly, and asks the right questions to clarify immediately if she doesn't.
Here’s what was said about the other fantastic nominees:
Jack Copus @ Secure Trust Bank:
Jack has learned a huge amount since joining us and has strengths within the team that impactfully help the campaigns that we run regularly. In a dynamic environment, Jack is always able to adapt and continue with high energy and enthusiasm. Even during high workload periods, Jack is able to prioritise and excel, providing solutions to problems with positivity. He really has become a key member of the team and we were proud to promote Jack this month as he has proven he can take on more responsibilities.
Tahj Nelson @ Ambition Institute:
Tahj has a fantastic willingness and ability to learn. From his first day with us, he has pushed himself to learn, engaging with all learning platforms and CPD available, as well as identifying areas he wants to improve on, and engaging in additional learning to improve in these areas. Due to the nature of our business, we have to be flexible which can at times be challenging, but Tahj takes it all in his stride and responds with real ease to changing situations, and helps support the team to respond with ease. It is a real pleasure to have Tahj is the team.
Calum Pradier @ Close Brothers:
Calum is a joy to work with, he always brings life to our office environment on a day-to-day basis. Calum’s positive attitude is contagious to others, when he’s in the office his livelihood and confidence encourages others across the business to feel the same. He makes the time in the office far more enjoyable which is so important.