We spoke to Jim Lewington, the employer of three of our digital marketing apprentices, and most notably, Mya Hackett, who was a finalist for Apprentice of the year 2021. We wanted to see what he had to say about Mya's journey throughout her apprenticeship and how he thought she got on. This is what he had to say:

"I'm delighted that Mya had been nominated for Apprentice of the year, it's nice to have somebody in our organisation recognised and there's no doubt Mya deserves it. She started her apprenticeship at a difficult time with the pandemic happening but also into an organisation where her role didn't exist previously. So she's come in and had to create a role for herself, a role that perhaps I was doing predominantly in the organisation, but with no real structure.

Mya has come in and really been the focal point for all our digital marketing, which has allowed us to focus on that aspect of the company, but also means it's taken away from me and I can now be more focused, it's freed me up to do other parts of the business that I need to do.

The apprentices we get are keen to push themselves, listen, learn, develop and progress. They understand they are an apprentice so we don't expect them to know everything. They take instruction well and have to work alone at times, but more importantly they develop into the kind of staff we want, as opposed to taking on staff who may have bad habits or practices that we don't like. So from our point of view, the apprenticeship scheme has worked really well and is the primary source of new employees at the moment.

We get new staff we get to train up in exactly the way we want, and as long as they learn, they listen, they take instructions and they want to push themselves to go far. I think if you need staff and are happy to put the time and effort into training them how you need them, the results will prove themselves.

Three of our apprentices have come from Swift and have all worked out really well.

The whole process of working with Swift has been good, it's been a difficult time last year with the whole pandemic but the communication has been good. My experience with Swift has been excellent."

See our other Case Studies from Employers and Apprentices