What
does a typical day or week look like for you?
A typical day for me as a
Procurement Apprentice is that I work a 4 day week and I am given 1 day a
week to complete college work. A short summary of my day is raising
purchase orders, communicating with suppliers, communicating with internal
stakeholders, manging my orders so they come in on time and invoice
management.
How
much hands on work do you get to do observations/training?
I received a lot of hands on
training & observation at the start. My buddy observed me until I felt
comfortable to be able to be left alone to complete the tasks &
workload on my own.
What
kind of training or onboarding did you receive at the beginning?
When I first started, the first
4 weeks we were meeting procurement professionals that work in different
sections of the business. I then had several weeks of training with my
buddies on learning the different processes and platforms. There are
various training courses I have been on such as Negotiation
Training, Carbon Training and activities on the company internal training
platform, u-Learn.
How
would you describe the work culture at Thales?
The work culture within
Procurement is very supportive. As a team they ensure that everyone feels
comfortable in what you are doing and then if/when you are stuck having
support that you need it is always there. There are a lot of laughs which
makes you feel comfortable in the working environment, but to a standard
which still maintains the standards of professionalism.
What
surprised you the most about the programme or company?
The drive to succeed, excel and
support that is shown from people to the apprentices to help me out within
my career.
What
do you enjoy most about your role?
I most enjoy about my role is
building the relationships with the suppliers and the internal
stakeholders being the middle man in procurement. Understanding your
stakeholders and having the stakeholder management is key to being in
procurement. Furthermore the achievement of solving an issue after it
taking a while is what I enjoy.
