Fujitsu Apprenticeships Reap Rewards
One of the world leaders in IT solutions, Fujitsu, are reaping the rewards of an apprenticeship programme they implemented just twelve months ago. The Japanese company have a big presence in the UK employing around 10,000 people and have made apprenticeships a key part of their recruitment strategy.
Barbara Boland, Resource Manager with Fujitsu, takes up the story. “We commenced an initiative to create an effective educational and development programme to provide opportunities for the youth of today. Supporting and linking in to the government apprenticeship scheme suited the needs of the business perfectly and coupled with Fujitsu internal training has enabled us to offer employment and career opportunities in our local communities”.
Telford College are partnering Fujitsu in this initiative. The College have supported Fujitsu in the recruitment process, module selection and on-going work place assessment. According to Barbara it is a partnership that is working well “The College have provided a high level of student candidates for the twelve month placements as well as cutting edge support throughout the whole apprenticeship process”.
Two of the beneficiaries of the Fujitsu initiative are Saul Millhouse and Kirk Hay who joined the company as apprentices earlier in the year. Both are working in key areas of the business. Kirk is employed within the enterprise management team and has a responsibility for monitoring close on eighty thousand servers throughout the UK.
“It is a great role, with plenty of responsibility and huge opportunities for learning new skills” enthused Kirk. “I had been unemployed when I decided to register an interest with Telford College for an apprenticeship placement. They could not have been more helpful and was delighted to be put forward for an interview with Fujitsu”.
Saul is training as a computer technician within the systems support team and was just as pleased to be selected for an interview. “The interview process was not as daunting as I thought it may be, in fact it was very informal! They certainly made it clear that they were not concerned so much in our technical skills, although obviously very important, but our attitude, people skills and flexibility to fit into the Fujitsu way of working”.
As part of the apprenticeship Kirk and Saul are undertaking a College based computer course to gain formal qualifications. Both have been stimulated by their experiences and are keen to make a professional impression. Saul’s ambition is “to excel in the company by making the most of the opportunity and learning as much as possible”. Kirk feels it is the perfect learning environment. “We face new challenges everyday and you can’t help but gain more knowledge and develop new skills. Fujitsu are giving chances to young people and they deserve a lot of credit for it”.
Barbara has seen the clear benefits the apprenticeship programme has delivered and how it promises to do so for the future. “The apprentices have adopted an extremely positive and proactive approach to their knowledge drive. They have seamlessly fitted into the business and commenced their training with a productive passion. They are now joining me in enhancing and defining the on-going programme by using their experience to improve our current apprenticeship processes”.
Fujitsu offers various kinds of apprenticeships ensuring a profound education highly adapted to each occupational profile. The combination of theory and practical exercises guarantees an outstanding and intensive education. The areas of business Fujitsu apprenticeships are available in are:
Application Services; Design and Development; Engineering Services; Network and Data Centres; Programme and Project Management; Retail Products Group; Service Desks; Sourcing and Supply Services; System Operations; Test and Integration.
For more information about Apprenticeships pleases contact Hayley Corbett at Telford College on 01952 642347. E-mail: hayley.corbett@tcat.ac.uk
