The busy Financial Services division of Thomson Reuters needed new IT talent, so they took on a Firebrand apprentice.
Why did this famous global business not take on a graduate or an already skilled candidate?
The Northampton-based office of Thomson Reuters Elite is the home of the worldwide development and support centre for MatterSphere, a document and case management product developed for busy lawyers.
The business is part of multi-national media and research business, Thomson Reuters, which prides itself in promoting talent. After early success with apprentices from local colleges, the business decided to see what a Firebrand apprentice could achieve.
The Software Development Manager at Thomson Reuters Elite, Darren Baldwin was initially tasked with taking over the management of three apprentices from the local Milton Keynes College. While the apprentices had worked well, Baldwin thought their Apprenticeship course wasn’t sophisticated enough for the roles that his department required.
“I started to look around and see if there was anything different from the current college Apprenticeship course and I stumbled across the Microsoft Partners Apprenticeship scheme, and the more I read about it, the more it seemed to align with us.”
The Microsoft Partners Apprenticeship scheme and Firebrand
After further investigation, Baldwin arranged to talk to Microsoft’s Dominic Gill, who runs the Microsoft Partners Apprenticeship scheme. Firebrand is one of the scheme's four UK partners.
“The more we heard about the programme the more it seemed like the logical fit for us. We are a Microsoft house—MatterSphere links directly into Microsoft Office—and we develop our software using Microsoft tools and technology. We very rarely stray away from that.
“Additionally, the different tracks in the course (SQL Server, Windows Server, Windows 7) meant we could use the course to fill roles in the Sales, Database, Support/Help Desk, and Developer teams with one solution,” Dominic told us.
Aside from that, our unique course structure, with one week of training followed by 10 weeks of assignments and on-the-job training, had positive advantages for the business compared to the standard day-release training offered by other Apprenticeships.
"Having structured periods of time where you know your apprentice is training and you know what they’re capable of is a good way to train, and it benefits everybody.
Especially compared to a normal training course where apprentices typically have to travel a day a week and it’s a four-day working week; plus, if they’re only away for one day a week the apprentices tend to forget their training!” Dominic said.
Unlike many organisations, Thomson Reuters Elite has always had a policy of recruiting and building talent from within, and, while they have taken on apprentices in the past, there is no official Thomson Reuters Elite policy on taking on apprentices.
However, Dominic sees close parallels between the Apprenticeship scheme and their traditional process, as he points out.
“Historically, we've had people coming in and starting at the Support Desk and moving through the organisation, and it’s always been that sort of culture here.
The Support Desk is where you learn what we do and get up to speed on the products and how to support them and then people, if they want to, develop within. Apprenticeships fit in nicely with that.”
Apprenticeships and alternatives
While investigating taking on an apprentice, Dominic also considered internal training and recruiting a graduate. Apprenticeships seemed the best option.
“We could have got people off the street who could do Software Development or be on a Support Desk and then train them up in our product. Or we could get somebody with product knowledge and train them with the skills they need; however, in a busy organisation, it’s difficult to find that time.
An Apprenticeship gave us a way that we can bring someone in to learn our product over the course of 12 months but they would also be getting the IT skills at the same time.”
To test the programme, Thomson Reuters Elite decided to take on one apprentice, Luke Elton, who was chosen from a short-list of just two or three candidates to work initially with the Consultancy Department.
The short recruitment process for an apprentice was also something that appealed to Thomson Reuters Elite, as Dominic confirms,
“We didn’t spend a lot of time interviewing people as the candidates were pre-vetted and so I had just one or two people rather than spend a whole day interviewing people.”
While Luke originally came into the Consultancy Department, he's now has been moved to the Support Desk team where he answers customer questions. Initially, Luke was just shadowing members and logging calls, but over time he has been given more and more responsibility and now answers calls he knows answers for, and can help with, and passes other more complicated questions on to other members of the team.
Firebrand support
As well as the intensive week-long training courses at our residential centre, we also monitored Luke’s performance on a weekly basis and supplied Dominic and Luke’s Support Desk mentor with weekly progress checks and more detailed monthly and quarterly performance reviews, as Dominic explains:
“Charlotte from Firebrand comes here monthly and I can sit and talk to Charlotte if I need to. I try to be as hands off as possible. And I’ll just respond if they need to be pushed!”
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