Apprenticeships nurture new and in‐house talent

Julie Harris of Premier Foods explains how the company accesses the apprenticeship schemes to train and upskill its employees, helping them develop their future potential, as well as to recruit new talent.

Premier Foods was among the first companies in the country to trial the first Level 3 Advanced Food Operator programme, even before the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy. The objective was to establish a clear career path for new entrants into the industry so that people would view working in a food factory as an exciting career choice.

The introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy in 2017 has been instrumental in establishing the route to upskilling and offering professional development to Premier Food's current employees. It has allowed us to nurture our in‐house talent and create a structured career path, particularly for those bright and eager colleagues who want to move to the next step in the technical world. Without the Levy, this sort of professional development programme would not be possible.

Currently, the company supports technical apprenticeships at Level 6 Laboratory Scientist, Level 3 Food Technologist and Level 6 Food Industry Technical Professional. Premier Foods participated in the employer Trailblazer groups which set the standards for the apprenticeship qualifications in the food sector.

The Levy has also driven the introduction of degree apprentices into our business allowing us to create junior technical roles incorporating the degree programme. This has the benefit of nurturing fresh talent with different perspectives and new ways of doing things. An added benefit is that fellow colleagues love to share their knowledge and skills in an informal mentoring capacity.

Another route we have been able to pursue is offering the Level 3 Advanced Food Operator Standard for our Pilot Plant Technician roles in our R&D facilities. These new roles have been created to drive recruitment of technicians for succession purposes, where we can see that we are likely to lose key engineering and plant skills through retirement of an ageing workforce in these small specialist teams.

中文翻译：

---

食品和饮料行业的职业和培训

学徒制培养新的内部人才

Premier Foods的朱莉·哈里斯（Julie Harris）解释了该公司如何利用学徒计划来培训和提高其员工的技能，帮助他们开发未来的潜力以及招募新的人才。

甚至在引入学徒征费之前，Premier Foods就是该国最早尝试第一个3级高级食品操作员计划的公司之一。目的是为新进入行业的人建立明确的职业道路，以便人们将在食品工厂工作视为令人兴奋的职业选择。

2017年引入的学徒征税有助于建立技能提升途径并为Premier Food现有员工提供专业发展。它使我们能够培养内部人才，创造结构化的职业道路，特别是对于那些想要迈向技术世界下一步的聪明而热切的同事。没有征费，这种专业发展计划将是不可能的。

目前，该公司支持6级实验室科学家，3级食品技术专家和6级食品工业技术专业人员的技术学徒制。总理食品参加了雇主开拓者小组，该小组为食品部门的学徒资格设定了标准。

征费还推动了学位学徒进入我们的业务，使我们能够创建包含学位课程的初级技术职位。这样的好处是可以用不同的观点和新的做事方式来培养新的人才。另一个好处是，同事们喜欢以非正式的指导能力分享他们的知识和技能。

我们能够追求的另一条路线是为研发工厂中的中试技术员角色提供3级高级食品操作员标准。这些新职位的创建是为了推动技术人才的继任，我们可以看到，由于这些小型专业团队中老龄化的劳动力的退休，我们很可能会失去关键的工程和工厂技能。