March Apprentice of the Month - Muhammad Shahzad
We are happy to announce the winner of the LDN Apprentice of the Month is Muhammad @ Citywire!
Nominated by LDN Skills Coach, Anton - Muhammad has shown real determination and dedication throughout his Level 3 Information Communications Technician apprenticeship over the last few months!
Not only did we receive some wonderful feedback from Muhammad’s line manager Kofi, but all of the nominations we received this month were so good, we have two runners-up!
Check out Muhammad's winning Apprentice of the Month nomination along with our other fantastic nominations below!
Muhammad’s Skills Coach:
Muhammad is an exceptional and very intelligent learner who has picked up the knowledge, skills, and behaviours at the workplace very quickly and has made excellent progress in his apprenticeship work whilst applying his learning to every task he is assigned. His projects are very well detailed and he tells the story clearly with what, how, and with whom he goes about doing all the tasks and when providing support to his customers as well as his colleagues.
According to his line manager, Muhammad is constantly performing at a high scale, proactively gets the task done with very little supervision required, and ensures that the tasks given to him, whether great or small, are always finished within the timescale required and with quality in mind.
Muhammad continues to impress and has admitted that he truly loves his job and everything that he is doing and is always ready to do his very best to provide exceptional quality support service. I am very proud of what he has produced in his apprenticeship and if he keeps this up, he will be going places.
Muhammad’s Line Manager:
Energy: Muhammad joined when we were in a transitional period within the organisation. It was a really difficult time to come into the team but his energy during such a challenging period was commendable. He approached all tasks and projects with such a position attitude which is absolutely the type of behaviours I like to foster within my teams.
Enthusiasm: Muhammad takes great pride in ensuing he’s not just completing tasks but also understanding why those tasks need to be completed and the impact it has on the team and business goals. For him to be able to see the micro and macro view of his tasks and projects gives him more impetuous to ensure they’re completed at a high level. Having that level of curiosity and enthusiasm is a rare quality and shows great maturity often only seen in more experienced team members.
Willingness To Learn: I’ve enjoyed working with Muhammad as he takes every experience as a learning opportunity. What makes him stand out is, if he’s not writing down notes, he’s making mental notes of what he’s learned. He then ensures those notes are available for the rest of the team if there isn’t a knowledge article already. It shows his commitment to continuous improvement through learning and sharing with others.
Ability To Take Feedback: When offering feedback, it can sometimes have a negative effect on an individual’s performance. With Muhammad, it’s the complete opposite. I’ve always found him to be extremely receptive to feedback and react in a very positive way. Whenever I or a member of the team have offered feedback, he’s taken it all in his stride. After referring to his notes and doing further research he may come back with additional questions and challenges but in a respectful way in order to aid his own understanding. Again, this shows such maternity and the desire to constantly improve himself.
Propensity To Take Action: At Citywire, we’re big on effective implementation (making things happen) and being customer obsessed. Muhammad has displayed these behaviours in abundance. For example, Muhammad has been given the responsibility to manage stock and ensure we have enough tech equipment available in all offices. To help with this, he’s proactively reached out to contacts in all offices to get regular inventory updates so he knows how much to order. In addition to this, he’s enhanced our asset tracking process to help manage the stock. It’s a pleasure to work with someone who constantly thinks ahead to make the user experience better.
Example of an outstanding piece of work: We had an issue with the video conferencing facility in our NY office that had been ongoing for a few months when he joined. I brought him up to speed with the issue as a training exercise and explained our next steps. He took it upon himself to do more research and get as much knowledge as possible about the conferencing set up and to help troubleshoot the issue he performed local test in our London based office.
His findings helped us determine the root cause of the issue in order to get it fixed. It required a few early evening calls with the manufacturer and our contact on site, but we were able to resolve the issue more quickly with Muhammad’s intervention.
I believe his all-around ability, tenacity, and willingness to contribute to the team and business goals should be recognised with the LDN Apprentice of the Month Award.
Our first runner-up for this month is lvl 3 Business Admin Apprentice Tahani Aisha Ali @ Ambition Institute! Tahani was nominated by LDN Skills Coach, Steve, with feedback provided by line manager Tom.
Tahani’s Skills Coach:
Tahani has been a joy to work with from the start of her apprenticeship and she continues to shine brightly and unassumingly whether in our 121 Coaching Sessions or in the Live Sessions. During these sessions, she always contributes very carefully and positively in both, despite being quite shy, which is great to see as we all want to hear the excellent ideas and opinions she has. Tahani has been working extremely well through her modules, doing so methodically and diligently and on a consistent basis across her time on the course.
Tahani always has a smile on her face, accepts feedback with humility and positive nature, and always strives to implement it wherever possible.
Tahani’s line manager:
I always enjoy my 1-2-1 chats with Tahani. She is such a breath of fresh air and we have developed a transparent professional relationship. This has been the experience of everyone she meets with. Any time I speak to someone about Tahani it is always about the positive energy she brings and her approachability.
Tahani is always open about how things can be improved and her voice is very valued in making decisions on how our internal communications channels should look. If someone needs a 1-1 demonstration on how to use our channels – I know Tahani is the best person to send out to give energetic support.
Our second runner-up for this month is lvl 3 Digital Marketing Apprentice Megan Hicks @ UK Finance! Megan was nominated by LDN Skills Coach, Alex, with feedback provided by line manager Darren.
Megan’s Skills Coach:
Megan has been an absolute star on the apprenticeship (now in her 12th month). She has shown great initiative and determined qualities to shape her role and day-to-day responsibilities now the ‘named’ go-to person for UK Finance business teams when they need certain tasks done, taking on responsibilities such as marketing collateral, intranet updates, and designing member copy, has been outstanding.
What’s more, Megan has evolved on the apprenticeship, whilst initially completing her A levels to now being one of my star performers. Her project work has evolved to being outstanding quality, she is consistently up to date with her learner journals, she’s passed all knowledge modules with flying colours and she has recently led a live session presentation around her project work and Twitter to all her fellow apprentices.
If anyone deserves this accolade for consistently improving throughout the apprenticeship to now being a top learner, nearing the final few months of her apprenticeship it is Megan.
Megan’s line manager:
The wide variety of tasks Megan has been keen to take on – and do well – has been superb. Her attitude is professional and she has become a valued and trusted member of the team. She has built up excellent relationships within the team, is well-liked and confident enough to find her own voice and has proved that she is someone to be entrusted with self-direction.
Megan’s confidence in her own decision-making, and ability to work alone, has been good to see. She is not shy to make suggestions as well as to take on advice.
Here’s what was said about the other fantastic nominees:
Alan Aleksandravicius @ Walker & Watts:
As Alan’s time in business has got longer the duties and workload attributed to him have grown. Alan has taken to various duties well, always willing to help and be part of the team.
Walker & Watts is a reactive business. Particularly at this time when 3 of our largest projects are underway. Alan has taken responsibility for procurement for these, instructions from the construction team often have a short time frame and Alan has to act quickly to secure the product and often make payment the same day.
Elisabete Ferreira @ Infopro Digital:
Our business is incredibly complex with multiple brands and dozens of product offerings. It is also constantly evolving which then impacts on our systems and processes. Elisabete has brought a real energy to keep up with these and understand the knock-on effects it has to our systems and what actions need to be taken. I have received a lot of great feedback from other teams for Elisabete’s positive attitude and for constantly being helpful.
Jordan Powers @ Walk-in-Media:
Jordan’s energy was apparent from the day we started working with each other. Jordan started before I and it was clear to see when I joined how much of a role he plays elevating the mood of people around him, and bringing some fun to the busy working days. Consistently looking for new work, and consistently accepting each piece of work with a high level of determination is exactly why Jordan’s enthusiasm within the office is noticed by not only his peers, but also his superiors.
Minhaj Zia @ Alain Charles:
Minhaj approaches tasks with enthusiasm and a positive, can-do attitude. He proactively offers to take on work, and within a month or two of joining the company ranked top among the editors in terms of the number of web stories written and uploaded. He has really taken ownership of keeping the Far East Agriculture website in particular updated, and researching stories for that. He has become the ‘go to’ person for certain tasks such as online newsletters and webinar reports, taking ownership of these exercises.