As an employer that highly values our apprentices, we are taking the opportunity during National Apprenticeship Week 2020 to shine a spotlight on the members of our team who have come to us as apprentices over recent years and celebrate what they have achieved since. MVIS and sister company Bartco UK boast an impressive record of staff retention, and few areas demonstrate this as well as the retention rates in our apprentices, with all but one who has entered our doors over the years choosing to stay with us.

Our longest standing apprentice, Dom Bridge came to MVIS all the way back in 2013 and has since progressed to play an integral part in our organisation as Assistant Operations Manager. Dom’s daily role sees him managing the operations team, making sure that products are quality approved, delivered and deployed to clients in a timely manner for their project’s success. Due to the importance of his role, Dom works closely with the MVIS management team, reporting on vital figures and planning ahead to ensure that our resources are allocated effectively to meet our customer’s present and future needs. Dom also played a central role along with the management team to achieve our ISO Integrated Management System, helping MVIS obtain accreditations (and then recertifications) in ISO 45001 Health and Safety, ISO 9001 Quality and ISO 14001 Environmental Management. On top of this, Dom also recently took a leading role in MVIS passing the Achilles accreditation. 

Next to start the organisation as an apprentice was Rebecca Prince, who joined Bartco UK as a Business Administration apprentice in 2015 and quickly progressed in the company to her current role as Purchasing and Stock Control Supervisor. Bec’s role within the organisation helps to keep things moving smoothly, ordering stock and components that facilitates the manufacture of our products. As a highly capable, reliable and diligent member of staff, it seems only fitting that Bec now supervises an apprentice herself, Pip Wood, as she completes her apprenticeship.

Shortly after Bec, George Sheldon also started at Bartco UK in 2015 after studying electrical engineering. George has since completed his apprenticeship in 2019, seeing him progress within the company to the role of Workshop Technician. His day to day activities see him producing and refurbishing our units, as well as preparing them to be delivered to customers. George’s already extensive knowledge has grown as a result of additional training courses he has undertaken during his time at Bartco UK, offering him the chance to develop his career skills. George has a lot to take pride in with regards to his apprenticeship, being named as a finalist in the 2018 Learning Unlimited Advanced Apprentice of the Year category.

Tillie Wolliscroft joined MVIS in 2016 as an apprentice with previous experience in customer service, putting her in good stead for her role as Operations Apprentice, working alongside Dom, as he also completed his apprenticeship. Since completing her apprenticeship, Tillie has advanced her skills tremendously, moving into the organisation’s newest department, marketing. Assisting Marketing Manager, Sean Brown, with the transition from agency marketing management to in-house management, Tillie has been developing marketing related skills such as graphic design, social media management, web development and SEO. Whilst Tillie has progressed enormously in the meantime, her apprenticeship is not one that will soon be forgotten, having won the Learning Unlimited Intermediate Apprentice of the Year Award in 2018.

Shortly following Tillie into the organisation was Cain Gregory, one of Bartco UK’s Technical apprentices. Cain has come on leaps and bounds professionally during his time here, with his first exposure to the company being through his work experience. We were so impressed with Cain’s talent and work ethic that we very quickly asked him to stay, with him joining our apprenticeship programme in 2017. As part of his role, Cain builds, repairs and refurbishes our units, making sure that our customers receive high quality and reliable products. On top of his apprenticeship, Cain is also busy training himself up in work related skills, having earned an impressive number of qualifications that include first aid, soldering, hand powered tool operating, fork-lift operating, health & safety awareness, working at height as well as his CSCS and Highways England Passport cards.

Pip Wood joined the Bartco UK team in early 2019 as a Purchasing Assistant, working alongside Bec in her role as Purchasing and Stock Supervisor. Under the supervision of Bec, Pip helps to maintain stock records, completing orders and monitoring that product components arrive with enough time for the production team to perform regular quality checks. Pip shows great ambition and capability in everything she does, quickly learning the intricacies of the role and proving a big help for Bec. Very much the ‘Bartco UK way’, Pip is also dedicated to her skills development, taking on fire warden and manual handling training during her apprenticeship.

Last but certainly not least is Bartco UK’s newest Technical Apprentice, Jacob Spencer. With a real determination to work hard and learn, Jacob is perfectly suited to his role with us, allowing him to stay busy doing what he loves. Despite his short time here, Jacob has already started upskilling himself, having achieved his manual handling qualification. Jacob looks forward to continuing to develop his skills set with the support and encouragement of everyone at the organisation.

It’s clear that both MVIS and Bartco UK have a successful history in recruiting, training and then retaining apprentices, testament to what can be achieved when employers take care of and support their staff. All the apprentices that have come through either MVIS or Bartco UK’s doors have been given the encouragement and space to develop their skill set, making them more proficient in their roles, but also giving them immense job satisfaction.

We cannot recommend the recruitment of apprentices enough to employers looking for hard working and dedicated staff who are working towards upskilling. But we especially need to shine a spotlight on this during National Apprenticeship Week.

MVIS and Bartco UK want to take this opportunity to thank our apprentices, both past and current, for all their hard work.

For more information about our apprentice programme, please contact us on 01629 580 570 or email sales@m-vis.co.uk.

It’s our very own Dom Bridges’ 5^th anniversary at MVIS this week. He started his career as an apprentice in 2013 and has quickly worked his way to a managerial position. Here we celebrate the positive impact that apprenticeships have for businesses.

Dom Bridge, our Assistant Operations Manager, started with us five years ago as an Admin Apprentice, before moving on to Operations and Customer Service Supervisor. Throughout his roles, he’s proven himself as a team player, bringing new ideas to the company and has grown to be an integral part of the MVIS team.

Since his first day, Dom got ‘stuck in’ right away. Incredibly organised and proactive, he uses his logistics skills to help plan for new projects and ensure we have the resources ready to deploy. Dom always says that no job it too big or too small.

Here at MVIS, we’ve found that hiring apprentices helps to engage staff and leads to a high level of staff retention, with all of our previous apprentices gaining permanent roles and staying with us as they ‘move through the ranks’. Current employees have the opportunity to develop their management skills through training and mentoring our apprentices, while the apprentices themselves gain a wealth of new skills and develop their confidence. Of our current 17 employees, seven are (or have been) apprentices.

Dedicated to helping students access the best opportunities, our General Manager, Anne Ashman, works closely with local schools and Sixth Forms, advising staff and students about work placements and apprenticeships. Using her industry networks, she is currently in the process of working with the head of a local Sixth Form to develop degree level apprenticeships in engineering, in partnership with high profile companies, as an alternative to traditional Higher Education.

Longstanding champions of the importance of apprentices, MVIS have since taken on and retained six more apprentices:

Rebecca (since March 2015)
George (since March 2015)
Tillie (since September 2016)
Kiran (since October 2016)
Tom (since February 2017)
Cain (since August 2017)

Anne says, “I believe it’s incredibly important for young people to be given enough information to choose the right career or education pathway, and for businesses like ours to support them in reaching their goals. For any companies out there thinking of hiring an apprentice, my advice is to go for it. Young people have so much to give, their enthusiasm and willingness to bring new ideas to the business is a real benefit.”

MVIS’ ethos on day-to-day business is led by our approach to service.

Service to customers comes above all else, and we strive to provide world-class class service to each and every client on every single order- no matter how big or small.

So, how do we instil this attitude throughout the company?

Well, you embed it through training and culture: introducing MVIS’ TRUST:

T – Team Work
R – Respect
U – Understanding
S – Safe Working Practice
T – Training

To be able to be consistent with these values – which the whole MVIS team contributed to – staff need to be trained for safe working practices and also have understanding and respect for others. All supervisors have been on some sort of HR course to be able to supervise other staff.

MVIS staff training underpins MVIS’ value of TRUST and we are extremely proactive with the continued development of our staff. Most current employees are doing some sort of training right now. This continued commitment to upskilling staff means that retention is at an all-time high as employees are satisfied, challenged and stimulated in their employment.

Anne Ashman, MVIS General Manager said:

“We feel our employees develop a greater affinity to MVIS as they can see firsthand that we are doing all we can to give them every opportunity to develop in their positions. We provide training and support to every department of the business, and support the entire workforce fully on their journey here with us.”

Additionally, there is no ceiling for skills at MVIS, nor a feeling of ‘job done’ or ‘nothing left to learn’. Anne continued:

“Even as General Manager of the company, I’m encouraged to keep learning and developing my own skillset. I am currently in the midst of an OU Business and Management degree, as well as an ITOPS course. Last year I also did a CIPD HR course- so it really is a constant here to be always exploring how we can upskill our staff right through the company.

“We run internal health & safety, environmental and quality training workshops monthly, which ensures that everyone understands the company’s key policies and procedures along with keeping themselves and the environment safe. Vitally, it also gets everyone to buy in to our ISO 9001 & 14001 status.”

Apprentices

MVIS has for the last four years, dramatically increased their uptake of apprentices. By doing this, employees learn the principles of the MVIS ‘TRUST’ model from day one, becoming malleable workers in the MVIS way.

The career pathway is embedded into the company for apprentices, and impressively – Operations Supervisor Dom Bridge began his journey with MVIS as an apprentice just four years ago.

MVIS presently has five apprentices, as well as a further two former apprentices that are now permanently employed. Overall, we have an impressive apprentice retention value of almost 90%, meaning almost 9/10 apprentices that MVIS give an opportunity to, stay with us at the end of their apprenticeship.

The intention to train and keep each apprentice to the MVIS values is paying dividends, with skilful, capable employees being molded.

At present, all current admin staff apart from accounts have been apprentices or are currently finishing apprenticeships with MVIS. Of the five workshop staff, there are three apprentices at various levels.

Anne explained the main benefit to recruiting apprentices as opposed to more experienced people:

“Simply, we can train them to buy into the MVIS TRUST values and our attitude to customer service, and it reduces the likelihood of having to remove bad habits taken from previous employment.”