Delighted to give space to Atos being awarded “Best Business Newcomer” at the 2012 Modern Apprenticeships Awards. I understand that Atos started the scheme in 2011 with 15 apprentices (11 still with them) and have doubled that to 30 in 2012. I’m also told that the aim is to triple this to 90 in 2013 when the programme will be expanded beyond IT to include HR, Finance and Procurement.
Atos also tell me that they have doubled their graduate intake from 64 in 2011 to 133 in 2012.
Of course, it is a bit telling that Atos got the award as a ‘Newcomer’. Better late than never! And with 74,000 employees worldwide, clearly there is a long way they could go too.
A few years ago, Apprentices were out of fashion. Now they are the Flavour of the Year. Maybe it is because of my known ‘passion’ for creating entry-level jobs, but I get an increasing number of notifications of such new schemes and hires.
I was particularly impressed with Fujitsu to create 300 new support services jobs. These are even more valuable than apprenticeships as they give unskilled people real jobs (as well as training). We’ve even had a few Indian players announce UK-based apprenticeships – albeit at the single digit level. But I guess we all have to start somewhere.
The furore caused by the (lack of) tax paid by the likes of Apple, Amazon, Google etc has shown that with greatness must also come corporate responsibility. I was lunching with an extremely successful IT CEO last week who said she owed much of her success to the UK's ‘free’ education, healthcare etc. She had no intention of doing anything other than pay the tax due in the UK as it was other people’s taxes that had given her the opportunity in the first place.
I feel the same way about entry-level jobs. If someone hadn’t given me an ‘apprenticeship’ at the age of 18 I would not have had the life I have had. I am determined that as many of today’s youngsters have the same opportunity I had.