June Apprentice of the Month - Charlotte Rogers
We are happy to announce the winner of the LDN Apprentice of the Month is Level 3 Business Admin Apprentice Charlotte @ UK Finance!
Nominated by LDN Skills Coach Geeta, Charlotte has consistently demonstrated dedication, passion, and a thirst for knowledge throughout her apprenticeship journey.
Check out Charlotte's winning Apprentice of the Month nomination along with our other fantastic nominations below!
Charlotte’s Skills Coach:
Charlotte is getting on very well at work, she is performing at a high standard and has fit in well with the team and organisation.
Charlotte is also up to date with all of her training plan activities and Thinkific and has begun working on her project, the project Charlotte has initiated is making a really key difference to UK Finance. Charlotte is very enthusiastic about the apprenticeship and produces her evidence collations to a very high standard.
This is Charlotte’s first role in a business environment; she is taking to it like she has worked in this environment for years. Charlotte has a great attitude to everything and all her evidence collations are amazing.
Charlotte’s Line Manager:
Energy: Charlotte started with us last November and my hope was that she would get up to speed with the core aspects of the job within 3 months, which is typical for new starters in that role. But Charlotte got up to speed far quicker than that and well ahead of my hopes and expectations. The nature of Charlotte’s role encompasses 20% ad hoc tasks, and each time I or other members of the team have thrown new stuff at Charlotte she’s absorbed these readily and delivered to a high standard.
Enthusiasm: Charlotte has shown genuine enthusiasm for learning, both the technical and business aspects of the role, and this is reflected in the very steep gradient at which she’s absorbed the quite technical elements of her role – data management and manipulation. She has a good understanding of how to engage with different stakeholders – both internal and external - at various levels of seniority, in the right manner. In all of these interactions, she displays a high level of professionalism without losing any of her positive disposition – a difficult line to tread when not all stakeholders behave in the same way.
Her enthusiasm to take on a wide portfolio of tasks, as well as some much chunkier, longer-term but business-critical projects, has made her indispensable in a very short space of time. If Charlotte’s ambition is to secure a permanent position at UK Finance after her apprenticeship, she has certainly shown the enthusiasm and skill set to make this a very easy decision for us when that time comes.
Willingness To Learn: Charlotte joined UK Finance and LDN at a time when the mortgage industry (where most of her work is focussed) was of the highest public profile. As a result, the Data and Research work we do in our team to represent the industry is of critical importance for both UK Finance and our members. She needed to get up to speed very quickly, not just with how to do the job but, increasingly, why various aspects of what we do are important for the wider business. There is a massive amount to learn about this industry and that learning process is never complete, no matter how long you work in it, but Charlotte has eagerly absorbed the key elements of both the how and why of her job at every step.
On a more technical level, UK Finance is currently in the middle of a business-wide project to reinvent the way it communicates with its members and external audiences, a project that encompasses both database and website aspects. Charlotte took on the additional role of one of the key business users for the new systems for our team, a highly resource-intensive, technical set of responsibilities, both cheerfully and without any detriment to her wider desk responsibilities. Like many other instances, this demonstrates why Charlotte has become such an integral and valuable team member in such a short space of time.
Ability To Take Feedback: With so much to learn in such a short space of time, it is impossible to expect that any new starter could perform perfectly with zero false steps from day one. Nobody ever does and, for an apprentice with no prior industry experience, even more so. However, in the very rare instances where Charlotte has needed to readjust either the work she has done or how she has done it, she listens to and absorbs feedback with, frankly, a maturity that many colleagues should envy. It’s trite but very true to say we learn from our mistakes and Charlotte’s attitude to taking on feedback in a positive way is a testament to this.
Propensity To Take Action: One of Charlotte’s core responsibilities is the day-to-day liaison with our approximately 300 member firms to collect and collate their data and ensure that this is reported to a high, consistent standard. In order to do this effectively it’s vital to know what that data ought to look like, both in terms of simple accounting identities and more importantly, what each of our members’ numbers should look like based on their particular (and very different) business profiles. As well as absorbing these skills, Charlotte has quickly become very proactive in identifying where things don’t look quite right, going directly back to members to query information and, where needed, seek clarification and/or resubmission. This involves both the technical skills and the soft skills to engage positively with contacts in the right way to achieve the right result in a short timeframe. Whilst this sounds like a simple task, in reality, it is both one of the most crucial and, occasionally, delicate things we have to do in our team. To her credit, Charlotte does not shy away from this but does it with the same positive enthusiasm as she shows in all of her work.
An example of an outstanding piece of work that has benefited the team: This is actually quite an easy one to pinpoint since Charlotte has recently completed, slightly ahead of schedule, a high-profile piece of annual member research.
Every year we collect and collate, from each of our 100+ mortgage members, business volumes that feature in a comprehensive published ranking of virtually every lender in the country. This research is used and referred to by all members and their business partners in their business planning and is the industry “golden source” of public information for individual mortgage lenders’ industry activity. As such, it is crucial that each and every one of our members’ information is both accurate and consistent in definition across the industry. This annual project runs over around six months and requires all of the business, technical and soft skills I’ve described above which Charlotte has quickly absorbed over her time at UK Finance to date.
In previous years, due to its high profile, this project has sat with more senior or experienced members of the team, with a knock-on effect on other work which these colleagues would otherwise be able to take on. It is a testament to Charlotte’s abilities and work ethic that this year, with appropriate but not intensive oversight, Charlotte delivered and published the outputs to the required high standard ahead of time.
Our runner-up for this month is Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprentice Monica! Monica was nominated by LDN Skills Coach, Dan, with feedback provided by the Invotra Team.
Monica’s Skills Coach:
Being consistently brilliant month after month, week after week, day after day is something that very few of us can do sustainably yet Monica has been this apprentice since day 1. Taking on a huge role within a very small team (just the 2 of them) Monica has literally taken on everything in her path and is currently working on a video tender with a huge client that would be an amazing result for her company.
On an apprenticeship level, she has attended every session, passed every exam the first time, and completed every project and task set for her well within the timing and to a fantastic standard. Month in, month out, the feedback from myself and her line manager has been nothing but exceptional in every regard.
Her confidence has grown immeasurably and it has been an absolute pleasure to support her throughout the apprenticeship. I feel that is why Monica should win – celebrate consistent effort, consistent achievement, and consistent awesomeness!
Monica’s line manager:
Monica starts each day and each week of her apprenticeship with positivity, to learn and to undertake the tasks she has set with energy and drive, to do them to the best of her ability. In our fast-paced campaign-driven team, Monica has met every task given to her with enthusiasm and a willingness to succeed. Even when working on really challenging, sometimes frustrating tasks, when perhaps the tools used let us down or slow progress, Monica is able to keep going, find solutions and challenge herself and those around her to keep going and meet deadlines.
In her willingness to learn Monica is truly faultless. She approaches every new task set, even if it is something entirely new, with great enthusiasm to learn how best to approach the task. We absolutely believe she deserves the award, she has been an incredible team member since the beginning, and having watched her confidence grow throughout the apprenticeship has been amazing.
Here’s what was said about the other fantastic nominees:
Neve Beauchamp @ Pearson:
Neve is a very positive and popular member of our team who has very quickly become an integral part of team life. Neve has come to the apprenticeship having decided not to go to university, which is a new route for Pearson, but this has certainly not held her back - her friendliness and energy have helped her seamlessly blend into the team.
Korben Sharpe @ Unily:
Korben is a key member of the ESG team and the wider HR team. He is always full of great energy and spirit. Korbens enthusiasm for business and CSR/ESG topics is apparent is all his work. He is naturally inquisitive and diligent. He is a completer-finisher and won’t rest until the task in hand is completed to the best of his ability. His level of passion for the subject has been felt in his posts, gaining a lot of positive feedback from many colleagues around the business. I am delighted to have him on the team.
Sarah Clegg @ Univar Solutions:
Sarah is always ready to take on a new challenge and tackles each piece of work with a desire to provide the best outcome for the business and users. She works well with product owners and teases out the information we need that form the basis of the functionality to form the enhancements. Having worked in the business she has solid business knowledge and she uses this to provide extra context to the support issues and enhancements, she has an infectious drive to succeed and always happy to help colleagues to provide a clearer picture.