Continuing Housing Technology’s ongoing support for housing providers and IT suppliers to the housing sector who take on apprentices, we are pleased report that Aspire Group has recently taken on its 300th apprentice.
Aspire Housing bought a training company in 2008 in order to help young people into work. Since then, PM Training has trebled in size and has helped thousands of 16-19 year olds get jobs with more than 900 companies throughout Staffordshire.
Over the last five years, this has been the route into employment for 300 young people who have become apprentices at Aspire Group; at any one time, apprentices comprise 10 per cent of the workforce. Aspire Group also directly employs young apprentices to work within the group, in a wide range of roles from business administration to gardening.
Georgia Robson is Aspire’s 300th apprentice, and is employed in the painting and decorating team, working on some of the housing provider’s 9,000 properties. She said, “At PM Training, they take you through a series of tasters of different courses to see what you have a talent for. That really helped me to work out what I wanted to do. Since then, I haven’t looked back.
“Any given week could see me with a couple of other learners and our supervisor either renovating existing Aspire Housing properties, or decorating new builds for the first time. The feeling of seeing the job finished, and finished well, is really rewarding.”
Will Nixon, deputy chief executive, Aspire Group, said, “We create around 700 apprenticeships a year, working with around 1,000 companies. However, we also practice what we preach in our own company and we’re very proud of the 300 apprentices who have passed through Aspire Group’s workforce over the past six years.”
