May Apprentice of the Month - Freddi Kearney
We are happy to announce the winner of the LDN Apprentice of the Month is Freddi @ Bluetree Group!
Nominated by LDN Skills Coach - Hannah, Freddi has shown real determination and dedication to her Level 3 Salesforce Admin apprenticeship, all whilst becoming a triple-star Salesforce Trailhead Ranger!
Check out Freddi's winning Apprentice of the Month nomination along with our other fantastic nominations below!
Freddi’s Skills Coach:
Freddi has been working tremendously hard since she started her apprenticeship last summer. She has shown complete dedication to her learning and the feedback from her employer has been fantastic in each coaching session, even though Freddi doesn’t quite see how good she actually is at what she does.
Whenever Freddi is given a task to do that she is a bit unsure of, she takes full responsibility for sourcing Trailhead modules and any other learning resource she can get her hands on to make sure that she is fully equipped for the task, and she is already a triple star Ranger with 4 Superbadges to her name!
While Freddi may be a quieter member on a group call, she is always open to any feedback she is given and has given her absolute all to each project she has submitted. She is not afraid to ask questions and always ensures that she understands fully what needs to be done. I think Freddi is an absolute star and I’ll be over the moon when she achieves her qualification.
Freddi’s Line Manager:
Energy: We can sometimes be given quite tight deadlines for projects and Freddi is fairly unflappable in this regard! She can work fast paced and efficiently and I think actually get quite internally frustrated if things move at a slower pace. She executes what she needs to with speed, but also with care and consideration which I think can sometimes lack in a fast paced environment. She never sacrifices quality for speed.
Enthusiasm: Freddi takes on all sorts of different projects from different areas of the business and approaches each one with an enthusiastic and determined approach. She’s really flexible with her working pattern if a change is required out of hours or if she’s stuck in a task which I think shows her enthusiasm and determination to get a job done.
Willingness To Learn: Freddi is often asked to work on projects that are totally new to the business, and more often than not she is the only person working on them. This often means that she is required to do research and trial things in the sandbox environment rather than having someone to talk her through. She has a great approach to these types of tasks and explores all avenues for her research. She often sets herself a goal in her monthly 1-to-1s to get to the next ranger level on Salesforce.
Ability To Take Feedback: I have seen Freddi actively take on feedback I have given and seen her make a conscious effort to take it on board. A piece of feedback I gave was that I thought her relationships could be strengthened and it would more easily aid technical chats with none technical people if she were to go and physically speak to people face to face. I’ve seen a huge improvement on this and can think of numerous times she has done this.
Propensity To Take Action: Freddi is very proactive in her approach to things. This is aided by her strong organisational skills and attention to detail. An example of this is her approach to Salesforce releases. She books in specific times to go through the release notes and pre-books discovery sessions with the relevant team members, whether it be IT or the developers. She is definitely always one step ahead!
Our runner-up for this month is Level 3 Business Administrator Apprentice Megan Lloyd! Megan was nominated by LDN Skills Coach, Steve, with feedback provided by the Faber & Faber Team.
Megan’s Skills Coach:
Megan has impressed me and her employer right from the start of the qualification and continues to impress to this day. Megan has always been the epitome of calmness, where she approaches all of her coursework and SMART targets with a very positive attitude and a level head.
Megan accepts praise with humility, but also with a real sense of pride, which is then etched on her face, showing how much she appreciates such feedback. She is always keen to learn too, however, and has really picked up the requirements of the course perfectly. It is for this, and many other reasons that I have nominated her for Apprentice of the Month, as she has shown great consistency throughout the whole of the programme to date.
Megan’s line manager:
Megan had to be something of a self-starter in her first weeks at Faber which is a very unusual position for an apprentice to be in. She never once complained about this and instead made the most of every interaction with her colleagues to learn and absorb. Megan is keen to meet with people from every department and is organising sessions to continue her mentoring programme. Megan is very diligent with her work and as a result, feedback has mostly been positive, which I hope she does take to heart.
Here’s what was said about the other fantastic nominees:
Nancy Weekly @ Kings Hair
Nancy has thrived at Kings Hair, working creatively on promoting Kings Hair’s online products via social media such as Facebook and Instagram which formed a really good project. The new website is simply fantastic, and Nancy can be very proud of what she has created on the back of some huge challenges. It’s been a huge success and has added professionalism to the brand along with linking the salon shop to it where customers can purchase products.
Laura Phillips @ The BMJ:
Laura has shown an abundance of enthusiasm for every single project or task she has taken on. I have been particularly impressed by her enthusiasm for the new TikTok account for one of our products. Laura has an important job of checking the videos against our content to ensure accuracy, and she always feeds back her comments on time and in a thorough and professional manner. She has also helped us enormously with our routine peer review process. I felt very comfortable delegating a big chunk of the process to her, as I knew she would be enthusiastic and more than happy to help. She has been carrying out the tasks diligently in the background and it is a mark of her humble nature that she probably doesn't realise how much she is contributing to the smooth running of this important process.
Alicia Jackson @ Bloomsbury:
Alicia has brought a breath of fresh air to our team. Her cool, calm, and collected manner is exactly what we require in the busy marketing and publicity team. She is proving to be a very level headed and creative thinker, constantly offering fresh ideas and even teaching us about new opportunities that we aren’t aware of for our books and the business as a whole. Whether it is designing briefs for marketing, creating press releases for publicity or completing admin for the wider team, Alicia will get what is required done for us quickly and with a can-do attitude! She immediately became a much appreciated and valued member of the team when she joined because of this.
Lucienne Gilmour @ AM Fresh:
Since starting the apprenticeship in September Lucienne has come into the office with positive energy, regardless of the current challenges in the business. She was thrown in the deep end slightly with the start of one of the most crucial seasons of supply and has excelled in all areas of her role. She creates a wonderful atmosphere in the office and has integrated across all teams, and she is a pleasure for us all to work with. Her kindness has been recognised by both others in the business and the suppliers we work with, and she has been a breath of fresh air for our department.