Richard - Team Leader / Supervisor
Richard is progressing his career through a Team Leader apprenticeship at Serco
Richard is in danger of being dubbed a serial apprentice. After joining Serco’s Royal Air Force Syerston Base contract in 2009, he completed a two-year Mechanical Engineering Level 3 apprenticeship. Once he’d finished that, he started a Level 3 Aeronautical Engineering apprenticeship. Then looking to move into a management role, Richard enrolled on the Team Leader Level 3 programme, completing it in November 2019.
All told, that’s a grand total of six years training in ten years. Throughout it all, Richard has been committed to his career progression through professional development. “Serco have been brilliant at supporting me to further my career. Each apprenticeship programme teaches you a lot.”
“As a result of completing the Team Leader course last year, I got a promotion to Senior Supervisor. Some people may have a natural gift for leadership, but I’m not one of them. The two-year programme helped me learn models and theories about what good leadership looks like. I’m quite a bit younger than some of my colleagues, so it taught me how to be a stronger leader. The Team Leader programme helps you to think about how you hold yourself, how you are communicating with your body language and to think about how you speak to people. It’s all about respect, being adaptable and being able to talk to different people in a way that they respond to.”
“At Syerston, we have the Air Force on site and it’s important that we communicate well with them. As a manager representing Serco, I have attended a few meetings with our customer. It has been a good experience to observe my managers in action and learning how they operate has given me confidence in how I act with my team.”
Now, Richard has set his sights on the next logical step, an Operations Manager apprenticeship. “I would like to gain a promotion within Serco. I quite enjoy the project management side of things so I’m keen to learn more about basic budgets and get my Yellow Belt certification. I want to be able to support our operational goals and ensure I’m getting the best output from my team.”
As you would imagine, he is a big advocate for apprenticeships. “The qualifications you gain through doing an apprenticeship are good for your career prospects. My only advice is that when you’re doing the course make sure you keep up to date, so you don’t have to rush through everything at the end.”