As the year draws to an end, we thought we’d take a moment to appreciate all of the amazing Apprentice of the Month Winners from 2021.
Although this year has had its ups and downs, one thing that has remained consistent is our incredible apprentices who have undoubtedly excelled throughout the whole year. So grab a cup of tea and a mince pie, and get ready to unwrap our 2021 AOTM highlights.
January: Lee Wilson, SJOG Hospitaller Services
“Lee has approached his apprenticeship with enthusiasm and has grown in confidence and knowledge.
“At short notice, Lee managed to source and set up 150 tablets for use in a new outreach service supporting victims of Modern Slavery. This service will be critical in supporting extremely vulnerable people remotely in these difficult times.”
“Lee is well known for always being willing to help, to solve a problem, and to go the extra mile for the people we support. He is a valuable member of the SJOG family.”
February & March: Karis Hays, Apprentice of the Year
“There are a number of achievements that Karis should be very proud of including her digital campaign in which she planned, implemented and reported on the outcomes, seeing the campaign through from start to finish, which was excellent.
“Karis’s biggest achievement has to be her boost in confidence. Four months ago, Karis was extremely quiet, and we did worry that this may hold her back. This wasn’t the case! She has come on leaps and bounds since then, throwing herself into the deep end, and really making the effort to get involved and build on her relationships not only with the marketing team, but with members of staff across the wider group.
“We are positive that with the continued hard work and commitment that we have seen so far from Karis, that she has a bright future ahead of her and that she will strive for excellent results whilst on her Apprenticeship programme.”
April: Rowan Woollard, Medicash
“Rowan has moved into the ICT environment with little previous experience and within five months is providing front line support to all our staff across all our different technologies and services. As his line manager, I can trust him to resolve issues himself or seek guidance and support from his peers. Rowan documents the resolution well using our ticketing system. His notes are specific and direct, exactly what we need.”
“Rowan has successfully completed several projects for me already, including the upgrade of all the Sales teams’ hardware at home. This included setup of new hardware, operating system, encryption, data migration, shipping, remote support, and setup. Each step of this was done, as per our company policies, on time and to my satisfaction.”
“Rowan has been a credit to Baltic Apprenticeships, and I look forward to helping him further develop his skillsets and move forward with his career.”
May: Wil Kenworthy, Lusso Footwear
“Wil has been phenomenal from the first time he stepped through the door. As a small growing business, we have to be dynamic and proactive in our day-to-day tasks and Wil has shown incredible signs of adaptability and versatility. He has a can-do attitude and takes on any task with a smile on his face.”
“Wil has shown tremendous growth as a digital marketer and a person in just a short space of time. He has played a huge part in us entering the Drapers Footwear Awards 2021 for Best Online Operations. The fact that we are competing with some of the biggest footwear brands and retailers in the country says a lot about the impact he has had here.
“Wil is now my right-hand man in this business, he is a key member of staff and continues to show signs of a future e-commerce manager. I’ve worked with many people with digital skill sets so I know just how good and deserving of this award he is. He is a pleasure to work with and has an incredible future ahead of him.”
June: James Tate, connective3
“James has done brilliantly since he started with us over 3 months ago. He’s always eager to offer his assistance to any project and has shown a real desire and drive to self-learn, he is consistently earning praise for his contribution to projects.”
“Working at a Digital Marketing agency can be a fast-paced environment, requiring quick adaption to changing client needs by the day – James appears to thrive in this environment, adapting to the pace and needs as required, he’s a real team player and we’ve all been impressed by his attitude.”
“He has shown real commitment to his work. Working in the office when necessary (socially distanced of course) – even when there are only one or two colleagues around. On days that he is in the office, he’s most likely the last one out… almost to the point where he’s being told that he has to leave!
July: Naryse Cox, BWL Consulting
“Since commencing the apprenticeship in August 2020, Naryse has shown herself to be a proactive, articulate, and gifted young woman. The apprenticeship has helped Naryse to improve her confidence and realise her true potential.
“Naryse has worked immensely hard around her many hospital appointments and additional quarantine procedures. Throughout this period, her determination to succeed has been unquestionable.
“Alongside this, Naryse was keen to start to move beyond her apprenticeship and take additional courses aimed at increasing her skills and competency, such as Beginners and Advanced Google Analytics courses.”
“Following a call with Baltic Apprenticeships, Naryse has decided to commence the next level of the apprenticeship to enhance her learning and understanding of digital marketing. Baltic has been instrumental in guiding Naryse and providing her with the next steps.”
August: Jasmine Rocks, The Independent Education Consultants
“In such a short time Jasmine has become an essential member of our team and whilst she is learning with you at Baltic, she is sharing her knowledge with us here. She is a delightful colleague to work with, always has a smile and is full of ideas and the confidence to share them. We are a growing business, and she has reacted and adapted her approaches and work to move with us as we develop new areas of the business.
“Jasmine is simply amazing. She is always cheerful and has a committed and dedicated work ethic. She is always full of great ideas and works very hard to make them happen, even if it means going away and learning new skills to do so. I’m not sure how we ever managed without her. I can see she is going to continue to be a fantastic asset to our marketing team. We are truly lucky to have her.”
September: Belle Fulton, 13 Creative Ltd
“Belle has been with the company since February this year and her progression has been impressive, to say the least. Belle came into this industry with no real prior knowledge and has dedicated herself to her learning with Baltic, within the business day-to-day and her own learning outside of working hours.”
“In the past few months, Belle has helped raise the profile of the company through her work on our social media channels. As my confidence has grown in Belle, I have introduced her to working directly with clients allowing her to develop those relationships, understanding the client briefs and delivering. This is much sooner than I anticipated.”
“Belle has always been open to constructive feedback and looked to develop in the best needs of the business. As shown in her last learning week with Baltic, Belle was chosen as Apprentice of the Week, which is a very fitting acknowledgement for her hard work, determination, and efforts.
October: Pedro Sousa, Envirosystems UK
“Pedro has been with the company since April and his progression has been impressive, he came into the agricultural industry with no prior knowledge and has put in the time and effort to learn about our stakeholders and target markets. Not only has he given this amount of effort to his new role, but Pedro also consistently gets over 90% in his apprenticeship exams with Baltic.”
“Pedro continues to grow in confidence and has taken on some big projects this past month, including mastering photoshop to produce banners for our trade stand, and working with the digital marketing team to provide statistics from social campaigns which have run across the past month.”
“No task is too big for him, he loves a challenge whether this is finding out how to do a task via a video on YouTube or asking other members of staff, no task will defeat him.”
“Pedro isn’t afraid to receive constructive feedback, often asking for feedback on his work and taking the comments on board to learn from them.”
November: Adam Simpson, Healthy Stuff
“Firstly, he has created and managed all our Black Friday output for 12 different businesses. This included creating the graphics, managing the social channels, and designing 27 different newsletters to ensure we reach maximum exposure over our busiest sale period. Although a lot of pressure, Adam has happily taken on more responsibility, and been able to hold his own in meetings.”
“Due to some changes in the department, we are moving some of the customer communication part of social media marketing over to Customer Service. Without any issue or problem, he ran a training session for the Customer Service team, including the senior members of the team and even included change management to help this move go as easy as possible.”
“We are very pleased to move Adam Simpson onto his Level 4 Marketing Apprenticeship, which means he will be with the company for another 18 months. We believe that his growth and development will help the company to move forward and keep with the times.
SEE YOU NEXT YEAR…
We would just like to congratulate all of our apprentices in 2021 who have achieved so much in such a difficult year. We’ll be back again in January with new monthly winners.
If you’ve got a Baltic Apprentice who deserves some recognition, we’d love to share their story in the new year!
Please send your nomination (around 200 words) to nominations@balticapprenticeships.com
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from everyone at Baltic!