HPP has always viewed our responsibility towards helping young people in the world of work via apprenticeships as being of great importance.
With National Apprenticeship Week (10 - 14th February) upon us, we are taking this opportunity to look back at our apprenticeship scheme and some of the people who have benefited from it.
Our Assistant Marketing Manager, Kenika Gumbs, has been catching up with some of our apprentices past and present, such as the Door Production Team Leader, Mark Simpson, who first joined us as an apprentice at Level 1 NVQ Manufacturing 20 years ago, and Sales Office Supervisor Deon Phoenix, who came to us as an apprentice Level 2 Business 12 years ago.
Our apprenticeship scheme started more than 25 years ago when then-trainee accountant Julia Heap became our very first apprentice. She has since gone on to become Principal at Hopwood Hall College and University Centre in Middleton following a successful career in local government finance!
Whilst Julia might have been our first 'official' apprenticeship, HPP Production Manager Terry Shaw started as an apprentice with our neighbours George Hill Timber Ltd, from which HPP was founded following a de-merger 34 years ago.
Terry joined us working on the shop floor making kitchen doors to order for what was then a small customer base loyal to the newly formed company.
From there, we trained Terry, developed his skills and helped him to progress through varied roles, including working in the machine shop, acting in a full-time supervisory role and later moving into a management position.
As Terry and Julia's stories illustrate, apprenticeships are a great way to launch a career. But an apprenticeship can even be a way to change career, which is being shown by one of our current apprentices.
Ellis Smith became our oldest apprentice when, at the age of 32, he embarked on a career change by swapping his office-based role as a Production Planning Administrator to join our mechanical maintenance team.
He is now working on his Level 3 Maintenance and Operations Engineering Technician apprenticeship with Oldham Training Centre (OTC) after passing his Level 2 qualification with flying colours. He's part of our five-man maintenance team led by Maintenance Manager Ian Banham, another former apprentice who has made the journey into management.
Ellis is one of our two current apprentices - the other being Accounts Assistant Olivia Saint-McCormick, who is nearing the completion of her Level 3 Diploma in Accounting qualification. She is studying one day per week at Oldham College, where she'd already spent a year working for and passing her Level 2 exams.
Our other two most recent apprentices are Ellie Shepherd, a Level 2 Furniture Manufacturer, and Warren Booth, a Level 2 Supply Chain Warehouse Operative, who passed their respective qualifications with distinctions.
Ellie, our first ever female apprentice in a shopfloor role, came to us saying she had a point to prove - that girls can flourish in a manufacturing industry - and she's certainly done that!
Warren, who works in our fittings warehouse, first started with us on a government-funded, eight-week traineeship, from which he emerged with flying colours to land his apprenticeship.
A final word…
"Apprenticeships enable us to train young people in a way that works best for the business," says Dan Mounsey, our Marketing and Business Development Director.
"As a company, we are quite unique in what we do, with all the different processes we are almost several businesses in one and to have the opportunity to take young people on and give them experience in different facets of the business means that as part of their learning, they are also learning about us and our sector.
"But it's also important to give young people a chance. As one of Oldham's largest employers, we see it as our responsibility to give something back to our local community, so we are keen to support the younger generation into the world of work, pursue apprenticeships and help people develop not only for the benefit of the business but for the individual too."