Meet The Apprentices

Paige Milton - Office Support Apprentice

Life before my apprenticeship

Prior to starting my apprenticeship, I completed one year at college and one year in full time work in retail. I decided to start full time work after one year of college because I felt college was not for me at this time in my life; as I had no clue what I wanted my career path to be. After a year in my retail job I realised I wanted to further my education in a subject I wanted to do, this subject being business. With the help of my nan I got my apprenticeship at DCC as an office support apprentice for Human Resources (HR).

Starting my apprenticeship

I started my apprenticeship with Devon County Council on 17^th September 2018. In my first week I had many fantastic opportunities given to me, such as meeting the amazing HR operations team; I sat and talked to them about the jobs they do and what I could be involved in, in the future. This helped me with my confidence around the job and I learnt some interesting things. I got to be involved with a disciplinary investigation and shadow the whole process; from being able to ask my own questions to reading through the reports and giving my own feedback to the HR adviser and investigator with opinions from my personal knowledge. This made me feel like I was part of the team and that I had a purpose all in my first few days! I also got to sit and shadow a grievance appeal bundle and learn what they are and why they are so important, giving me the opportunity to read through the bundle and understand the grievance procedure. On top of all this I gained knowledge of basic office duties such as scanning documents into an email or file, how to print and photocopy and how to do the post.

My second week was also full of opportunities. I spent the day at County Hall and was shown around the whole campus and learnt about staff rewards and discounts. My favourite part of County Hall were the committee rooms. Throughout the week I was still shadowing the disciplinary from the previous week, looking at  emails and helping one of the HR advisers with different issues and giving my opinions on the case and feedback when needed. I also sat and helped a business partner with her presentation in a HR operations team meeting which meant I was sat through the whole meeting and learnt about how HR operates on a day to day basis.

Overall my experience over my first 2 weeks has been brilliant. Being involved in so much of the operational team and different categories of work has been the best part, giving me lots of experience and knowledge. I really look forward to the future with my apprenticeship and working in HR operations.

Paige Milton

Office Support Apprentice in HR Operations 

Twitter | Facebook | Website