April Apprentice of the Month
Matt McClure
We are happy to announce the winner of the LDN Apprentice of the Month is LDN Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Apprentice, Matt McClure @ Align JV.
Nominated by LDN Skills Coach Devina, Matt's nomination showed how his innovative ideas are making such a big impact at Align JV and his personality really shone through. Described as confident, enchanting and innovative, it’s clear to see the positive impression he’s made during his time at Align JV so far.
Check out Matt's winning Apprentice of the Month nomination as well as all the other fantastic nominations below.
Matt’s Skills Coach:
Matt does not take things at face value, he is brilliant at seeking clarity and understanding things beyond surface appearances. Matt’s ability to always question things is driven by his want to ensure that what he is doing is always the right thing, whether that is for environmental or social responsibility reasons.
His proactive approach as an apprentice is absolutely exemplary, he has made an impressive amount of connections throughout his organisation already by simply being himself, and in such a short amount of time.
He came into corporate responsibility and sustainability with no prior knowledge but has already amassed such an impressive skills set. A few of the highlights I have been able to hear about include working with charities and the communities near his work to support schools and local wildlife, developing his knowledge of complex geographic information systems to support his team, creating partnerships to have positive environmental and social impacts and helping his team to be environmentally accountable through reporting. These are just a very small selection of the wonderful things Matt has been involved in, and definitively just the beginning of the great things he will do!
Matt’s Line Manager:
How have they improved/impacted the business and the team since they started their apprenticeship?
Matt joined the team during a recruitment drive when four different positions within the team were vacant and a requirement to fill them was mounting. The positions being Undertaking and Assurance Officer, Community Engagement Officer for Colne Valley Viaduct and for Tunnels and Shafts (two separate roles), and Complaints and Enquiries Administrator. The eagerness to learn and assist was evident in Matt with him offering to split roles and cover during certain days/times when most needed. Matt learned the different areas, roles, and his new colleagues. He very quickly became relied upon for times of annual leave/sickness/meetings etc. Not only did this help many team members take their much-needed R&R, in addition, it was also a fantastic way for Matt to gain experience, become known, and build his knowledge and confidence within the team.
What three words best describe them? (Please give an example/expand on each)
Confidence – he is assured in the way he is able to speak to stakeholders, be it County or Parish Councillors. I was most impressed with Matt at a drop-in public event when a resident spoke to him unpleasantly and irate, complaining about the project. Matt took it all in his stride and quickly turned the conversation around into a positive engaging experience with the gentlemen succumbing to humour and smiles. He was not phased at all and with this being such a challenging project, Matt is well-suited.
Enchanting – Matt is that person who is guaranteed to bring a smile to every room whilst exuding optimism. You find yourself smiling when you’re around Matt as he sees the positive in every situation and is always so willing to offer support. With an aura as warm, glowing, and cheerful as Matt’s, it’s likely your spirits will be lifted and a sense of achievement seems possible in all circumstances. Matt works well with all team members of all ages, backgrounds, nationalities, and embraces learning about them all as individuals.
Innovation – Matt is constantly thinking outside the box as to how he can improve the way we work and our systems. His example of creativity and innovation below has since been implemented on the project and has set the standard for what can be achieved when in an environment where ideas and openness are encouraged.
An example of an outstanding piece of work, project or task they have worked on.
Matt had an idea and took it upon himself to work with the Geographical Investigation Systems department to develop a Stakeholder Engagement dashboard. His idea was to bring together various engagement activities in one place which can be viewed, assessed, and rectified. It includes how many complaints and enquiries have been received, in each area demonstrated by a plotted map, what category they sit under, our engagement events, meetings, presentations, and all statistics which allow us to show our working throughout any time within the records. This is hugely beneficial to the team with all the information captured in one place which prior to the development of this tool collating the information was extremely time-consuming. We can now see at a glance how the different project areas perform month on month highlighting areas of development. This format is now used to issue our data to the client each month as a ‘one-stop-shop’.
Our runner-up for this month is LDN Publishing Assistant Apprentice, Athena! Athena was nominated by LDN Skills Coach, Helen, with feedback provided by the team at Bloomsbury.
Athena’s Skills Coach:
Athena has worked hard from the very first moment she started the role. She has been 100% curious, asked good questions, and tried to get ahead as soon as she could. Athena lacked confidence in public speaking and speaking up when she first started, but she recognised this, and took on extra challenges not only at work but also during her apprenticeship such as presenting at a Live Session (very well!) and pushing herself (with only a little cajoling!) into being videoed for a future promotional video, talking about the apprenticeship. Athena has taken every opportunity to widen her experience, visiting the rather daunting London Book Fair and a printers already, and signing up for an optional module on DE&I. She is extremely receptive to feedback and keen to improve. She met with a setback recently, but she took time to think things through, brushed herself down, and is moving right on. Athena is nicely on or ahead of target in all her work. She is a great example of someone making the very best of the chance that she has.
Athena’s line manager:
Athena has helped ensure that the administrative side of our team runs smoothly since her first day, from setting up the pre-acquisitions and team meetings (and looking after the agendas), to updating the submissions log as well as circulating the Top 10 Charts to the wider editorial team (which she schedule sends at the same time every Monday as she’s so efficient – she’s even set this up before going on annual leave!). In addition to this, Athena sets up costings, sources brilliant quotes for upcoming books and ensures we’re on top of our metadata – she is an incredibly safe pair of hands and a well-respected member of the team.
Here’s what was said about the other brilliant nominees:
Ian Sugden @ Building Engineering Services Association:
Since starting his apprenticeship, Ian Sugden has taken on the new skill of producing Learning Modules for our business (these modules are of varying subject matter/length/content etc.) His work has saved us from utilising a third-party design contractor and we estimate that we as a business have saved what would have amounted to some £30K in design costs. The recipients of the offerings Ian has designed all think that we are still utilising the specialist contractor, he has successfully woven learnings from his course into his design work and is using processes he has learned on the course.
Kai Bamford @ Walk in Media:
Kai has helped improve the team through great initiative and innovative thinking in terms of reporting and optimisations for a wide range of clients here at WIM. Particularly from a programmatic perspective, Kai has helped in creating bid multipliers and time-of-day purchases for our e-commerce clients to try and help increase performance. Alongside regular reporting and reconciliations which has helped the team.
Victoria Tamale @ London Borough of Lewisham:
Since Victoria started as the Facilities Team Administrator, she has slotted in the role like it was made for her, making her appreciated by the premises team. Victoria has excelled in the role of facilities administrator, the cafés which are her main are all running very efficiently thanks to her changes. There was an issue with stock going missing. Since Victoria's changes, the wastage has decreased and the stock disappearance has ceased. Victoria is very professional in all that she does, the team find Victoria very helpful, approachable and an excellent administrator. This is why we are planning to offer Victoria a permanent position and the end of her apprenticeship.
Ben Gibson @ BBC:
Ben has become an integral part of the Marketing team at Think Active. His videography and design skills are impressive and have helped increase the level of content being shared on our social platforms, as well as supporting the operational requirements of Think Active.
In addition to this, Ben is great fun to work with, he learns quickly and works conscientiously.
Conor Heffernan @ Foster & Partners:
Conor has had an immediate impact on reducing our ticket numbers and reducing our resolution time. Through creating an extensive set of notes, and his sheer willingness to learn, he was able to get onto the phone assignments a week earlier than planned and have all manner of tickets auto-assigned to him 2 weeks earlier than planned. Conor has consistently hit SLAs, taken tickets from assignment to resolution whilst liaising with other teams and has even helped mentor newer members of the team.
Conor has received praise from varying levels on an almost weekly basis, from Admin/PA level to other IT teams (at varying levels) and also from some of the VIP users (Partner level and above)
Conor also took the lead in supporting and managing tickets around a new piece of software introduced to the business, resolving tickets, creating documentation and working on a problem ticket to resolution. He also took the lead in a Sharepoint rollout across one of the biggest projects in the business.