Baltic Apprenticeships were crowned the winners of the Dynamo Skills Developer Award at a virtual ceremony on the 14th October 2020.
The Dynamites are an annual award ceremony, organised by Dynamo North East, a regional network of IT and tech organisations dedicated to the continued growth of the digital economy.
The Skills Developer category, sponsored by NHS Business Service Authority, recognises organisations and individuals who are excelling in innovative training initiatives or apprenticeship programmes that contribute to the development of the North East skills pipeline.
Baltic Apprenticeships were shortlisted alongside some amazing organisations, including Sunderland Software City and TechUP Women.
When announcing Baltic as the winner of this category, the presenter said:
“The judges were impressed with how Baltic have supported both young people and corporate organisations during the Covid-19 pandemic. They highlighted how they’ve nurtured young people through a career pathway, and the number of apprenticeships that have come through their ranks is outstanding.”
Outstanding support during the pandemic
Like many of the winners this year, Baltic were recognised for the way we have adapted to the Coronavirus lockdown, bringing in extra support to help preserve training opportunities for young people across the North East.
Through our SMART Classroom remote learning platform, we ensured that training could continue during the lockdown for our apprentices on programme. For apprentices who were due to start with a new employer and were at risk of having offers delayed or withdrawn, we created an additional lockdown learning package, with accelerated technical training and self-paced online courses. This helped to keep opportunities open throughout the pandemic.
The Baltic team were also recognised for our work on the pre-apprenticeship skill development programme, particularly our collaboration with RAW Digital Talent. The RAW Digital Talent Academy opened up access to tech apprenticeships for young people across County Durham, including those at risk of long term unemployment.
Apprenticeships at the heart of company culture
One key aspect of the Skills Developer Award criteria was about demonstrating a commitment to developing skills internally.
At Baltic, this was simple to showcase: in the last 5 years, we delivered 55 apprenticeship programmes for Baltic employees, many of whom have gone on to progress within the business.
Two of our senior management team started their careers as apprentices, while other former-apprentices have gone on to lead teams across the business, including our marketing and IT teams. Currently 6% of our team are enrolled on apprenticeships – making it easy for us to shout about the benefits of these training initiatives!
Find out more about the Dynamite Awards – and celebrate some amazing award-winning organisations – over on their blog.