Apprentices maximise APM Corporate Partnership engagement

To address the issue of a clear breakdown of the engagement between our organisation and the APM, the project’s aim was to examine the current engagement approach, with the goal of evaluating what the ‘right’ way to collaborate could look like in the future.

Team Introduction

Being Project Management apprentices working in a large corporate organisation, we all had differing levels of experience. We had also not worked previously worked together or with members of the APM North West branch and senior apprentice managers in our organisation. Therefore, it took a bit of time for us to understand how to work effectively and build on each other’s strengths.

The planning and delivery of the project has significantly aided the development of our apprenticeship knowledge, skills and behaviours, for example leadership, collaboration & teamwork and project justification. As we work in a large corporate organisation, exposure to these competencies can be limited due to the organisation’s construct and its’ focus on large, complex projects. Therefore, the opportunity to both plan and deliver a discrete project has proved to be invaluable to our personal and professional development.

How Did We Start?

To understand the current position, we held an interactive focus group session and distributed a follow-up survey. We found that of the apprentices asked:

• Over 90% were members of the APM.
• The majority receive engagements via email.
• A lack of understanding of membership benefits was a key reason why some were not members.

We took the opportunity to present our findings at the APM North West conference in April 2024 to share the learning from our approach. To reflect, we feel as if we could have further promoted our research by utilising internal communications teams, but we enjoyed hosting the focus group as it encouraged open discussions.

Developing Our Solution

To address the initial project aim, we suggested that the role of an apprentice APM representative could be introduced, initially trialled locally in the North West. After presenting an options appraisal to our apprenticeship team and having this approved, we advertised and assigned an apprentice per cohort.

This experience helped us develop our business case knowledge and improve our confidence by presenting to senior leaders within the company, alongside developing our leadership and organisational skills as we managed the application and selection process. These are situations that we are not often exposed to as apprentices, increasing the value that we took from the project.

So far, the apprentice representatives have been sharing monthly APM bulletins with their cohort containing information about upcoming events/opportunities and have assisted with the APM North West challenge work, therefore promoting engagement between our organisation and the APM.

After requesting feedback to reflect on the initiative’s success, the following was identified:

• The APM is seen as positive, informative, useful for providing resources and a good integrator between corporate work and university studies.
• Apprentices are receiving regular communications from their representative.
• Apprentices feel that their awareness of the APM has increased, however engagement could still be improved.

So, What is Next?

• We have received approval to expand the project to include all Project Management apprentices within our organisation to ensure benefits are seen nationally.
• This opportunity rewards us for the hard work that we have put into the project to date, however this will be challenging due to the scale of the project expanding into areas where the team have little prior experience.
• To overcome this, we are considering lessons learned from the current project and will continue to consider the views of external stakeholders (e.g. APM) to think of innovative ways to work outside our organisational norms.

Overview

As a team, we initially felt like the scope of the project was somewhat unclear and we didn’t understand the potential of where the project has been able to get to today. We have been provided with ample opportunities to develop personally, for example increasing our confidence due to liaising with various new individuals. Also, we have developed professional skills that we may not have been able to develop in our placements such as project justification and organisational strategy.

The project has also brought about several organisational benefits, such as an improved and enriched apprenticeship scheme with even closer links to the APM, and the opportunity to provide additional stretch assignments and enrichment roles to apprentices.

In terms of future targets, we plan to engage with apprentices from other organisations and discover if there are opportunities for their organisation to increase engagement with the APM. Furthermore, we are continuing to maintain regular engagements with the APM to look for new opportunities to develop this relationship and additional opportunities to maximise the potential benefit that can be gained from this continued cooperation.

Written by the BAE Corporate Apprentices