June Apprentice of the Month - Vera O'Driscoll
We are happy to announce that the winner of the LDN Apprentice of the Month is Vera O'Driscoll @ Axis!
Nominated by LDN Salesforce Skills Coach, Devina - Vera is our very first Level 4 Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Apprentice to win the accolade!
We received an incredible nomination from Vera's line manager, as well as other brilliant nominees, which you can read below!
Vera’s Skills Coach:
Vera is such an amazing apprentice (apprentice of the month material) for lots and lots of reasons. A few are outlined below…
She is always super ahead with her journals and on top of everything Litmos-related and brings such positive energy to all the coaching and live sessions.
She delivers assignments of a really high quality, usually way ahead of schedule, and always seems to have her head down working really hard. This is reflected in the discussions I have with her line manager around the wide range of responsibilities Vera has taken on as she works with both the sustainability and social impact teams at Axis.
She has incredible ideas which will one day help to drive real positive changes for her organisation and is always looking for ways to add value to the world around her. Vera’s submitted assignments have insights which add a fresh perspective to supporting sustainability and social impact.
Vera organised a charity fundraiser for a children’s hospice recently at work, she made sure it was fun, that people at her office were involved and that everyone who took part had the chance to take away a piece of yummy cake. This is just one of the many examples where Vera is able to use her ideas to drive positive outcomes.
Vera faces challenges with courage and there are many people who are very proud of her.
Vera’s Line Manager
Energy:
Since Vera joined Axis she has been a breath of fresh air. Not only has she settled in well to the immediate community investment and sustainability teams, but she has made a conscious effort to get to know the wider teams within Axis and some of our clients and partners too. We’re very grateful to have her on board!
Enthusiasm:
Given the nature of the role Vera has been set a range of tasks, from creating our monthly newsletter, to data collection for our partnership with Emitwise. Although some tasks are certainly more fun than others, Vera has a great work ethic and shows the same amount of enthusiasm for each of them. It’s very refreshing and helps boost morale amongst the wider team.
Willingness To Learn:
Whether it be in relation to her work or her apprenticeship Vera is always looking for ways to grow both personally and professionally. Last month, Vera was offered the opportunity to complete a 3-day training course to become an internal auditor. Despite being relatively new to the role and the apprenticeship, Vera took the opportunity with open arms and has since conducted her first internal audit of our Head Office. A fantastic achievement.
Ability To Take Feedback:
During May I went on annual leave which meant Vera had to step in and deliver a 15-minute community investment presentation to 120 employees from our Projects Division! Naturally, Vera was quite nervous beforehand, so we practiced so she felt both comfortable and confident when delivering it. To say she smashed it is an understatement. I have received so much positive feedback from the team since. One Divisional Manager said, “I can’t believe Vera is an Apprentice. Some of my team have been with me 9 years or more and they still wouldn’t have the confidence to do that”. Very proud!
Propensity To Take Action:
Vera is a shared resource between our community investment and sustainability teams so no two days are the same. It’s a very busy role so taking initiative is key. A great example is the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. To encourage employees to come together and celebrate, Vera decided to host an afternoon tea in our Head Office. She organised the event from start to finish raising a fantastic £155 for our corporate charity partner, Demelza Children’s Hospice.
Our runner-up for this month is Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprentice Jessie Burden! Jessie was nominated by her LDN Skills Coach, Howard, with feedback provided by her team at SCB Global.
Jessie’s Skills Coach:
Over the last 12 months Jessie has been unfailingly positive and proactive, even during tough times, and has consistently exceeded expectations while demonstrating LDN's core values of resourcefulness, resilience, and curiosity.
This month, Jessie completed her final portfolio on time and to a high standard. To achieve this, she took real ownership of the outstanding elements by raising concerns and queries with me and planning her time and work exceptionally well. She took great initiative to gain the additional marketing experience and skills that she needed, culminating in the delivery of a range of successful campaigns and reports that helped the business grow.
In addition, Jessie gave a helpful demonstration on the HotJar analytics platform in this month's Live Session - just one of many examples of Jessie sharing her knowledge and volunteering for additional challenges. This is a long-overdue but fully merited nomination.
Jessie’s line manager:
Jessie's energy is infectious and she puts that energy into everything that she does. This energy and reliability really has propelled our small Marketing Team to get through some large campaigns and event organising and best of all Jessie delivers it all with a smile!
Jessie's enthusiasm for what she does in her role is clear to see, Jessie loves to learn and try new things and will put her hand at anything. Jessie always contributes to campaigns and other marketing activities with enthusiasm for both the company the department and the task at hand.
It’s great to share the enthusiasm that Jessie has for our social media analytics which has supercharged her enthusiasm to get to the next level!
Here’s what was said about the other nominees:
Elle-Jay Christodoulou @ Profile Books:
Elle has slotted in with the team really well and is well ahead of all her targets as set by Geeta and on the role-specific tasks set by me.
She’s been a huge help in getting our archiving project up to speed and has smashed the lockdown archive backlog to pieces.
Emily Hunton @ Coda Plastics:
Emily has continued to push herself through the personal barriers that she has and has since come so far from last year. She still has a way to go but is determined to overcome it which I think is a massive achievement for her.
She knows that she has certain tasks to do during the day and she just gets on and does these every day.
Alice Lavender @ The Dispute Service:
From day one of being with us, Alice’s bubbly personality shone through earning her the admiration of her colleagues and many awards at various events for the biggest smile!
Alice came into the business as an apprentice a since then has developed within the company to her current role. Alice doesn’t just have her day job though, she is part of many groups including the Diversity Working Group, Fundraising Committee, and Events Organiser alongside myself.
Rohan Patel @ Bates Wells:
From the very first day Rohan has taken on every task he as been assigned with great enthusiasm. He has become an important part of the Team and in such a short time has earned the respect of his colleagues and his peers. As his manager I am often given compliments about the way he deals with people and problems and in a professional manner.
Awais Shahid @ Future Science Group:
Being the youngest member of the team, Awais brings a lot of energy to both his work and the office environment. He has been able to integrate into the team well and is always polite and positive when it comes to workload.
Serhat Kara @ Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan:
Coming from very different working background, technology in general is new to Serhat. From learning mobile device remote management, to getting an understanding of computer network, Serhat has shown keen interest and willingness to enable himself to be more independent with helping out users.
Ailsa Gurung @ Adam Matthew Digital:
Ailsa has done incredibly to catch up on a large amount of work to submit in time for Gateway to EPA. She made a titanic effort to complete her journal, Litmos Modules projects and portfolio pieces. She was proactive in thinking through what she could do for her projects and connect with the relevant people in the organisation to get the information she needed. That’s been a real highlight of the past couple of months.
Ellie Jardine @ Bloomsbury:
Ellie quickly made her mark on the wider team with her cheerful approach and can-do attitude – her enthusiasm to tackle even the most mundane of administrative tasks is inspiring. She is also very interested in the wider publishing industry and looks for fun new angles to bring to her work – for example giving an Apprenticeship presentation about how to use TikTok in marketing!