A job swap day at Chesterfield’s Learning Unlimited will see its Operations Manager switch jobs with one of the team’s apprentices to mark National Apprenticeship Week (4-8 March).
While Leah Shortt will be getting a reminder of what it’s like to be in a less senior role, business administration apprentice Josh Bown, will be stepping into her role and will be learning what it’s like to manage the team.
Josh will be taking on daily tasks in Leah’s calendar including taking a lead role in the weekly departmental meeting, joining a high level strategic meeting with senior managers and planning a marketing campaign. Meanwhile, Leah, who has worked with the national provider of apprenticeships for five years, will be seeing what it is like to be in 17-year-old Josh’s shoes.
When the pair exchange roles, Leah will be picking up his duties; talking to potential customers, answering enquiries and uploading content to the Learning Unlimited website, among other things.
Learning Unlimited, which is part of the Chesterfield College group, provides apprenticeships and learning programmes to more than 3,000 apprentices nationally and has over 30 apprentices within its own organisation.
Leah said: “This will be a learning opportunity for the both of us. Josh has become a really valuable part of the team since he joined us but this will give me the chance to find out more about the daily challenges he faces as an apprentice within our organisation.”
“As a leading provider of apprenticeships, we want to lead by example. We have a strong reputation for developing talent through apprenticeships and many members of our team have joined as apprentices and progressed up the career ladder. This is an important exercise to see just how well we support our own apprentices and will demonstrate what we’re doing right and areas where we may be able to support our apprentices even further.”
Josh said: “I’m looking forward to the challenge of switching roles. This is a great opportunity for me to learn more about how decisions are made and help me develop new skills. It’s always good to learn new things and I’ll also be able to use it as part of my learning towards my business administration qualification.”
