Morgan Sindall Property Services Launches it’s Flagship Apprenticeship Academy

Morgan Sindall Property Services (MSPS) is proud to announce the launch of its ground-breaking Apprenticeship Academy, aimed at attracting and inspiring talented young people into a wide range of roles across the property maintenance and construction industry.  Developed by our in-house Social Value Team and led by Social Value Officer Luke Culling, the academy complements our existing, extensive training and employment programmes.

The MSPS Apprenticeship Academy provides a structured approach to recruiting annual cohorts of apprentices during the summer months, when young people will be leaving school or college and planning the first step in their career. By forming cohorts, the apprentices will follow a shared journey into employment and benefit from peer support, as well as the support provided by MSPS and training providers through the apprenticeship programme itself.

What differentiates the MSPS Apprenticeship Academy from similar programmes, is the inclusion of a pre-employment week used to shortlist candidates for the programme.  To be inclusive and enable as many people to attend as possible, pre-employment weeks will be held in different parts of the country and online.

Held this week, our first pre-employment week showcased a diverse range of career options within MSPS and the wider sector, including trades-based, commercial, customer service, communications and design roles. Prospective apprentices also undertook practical, workplace-based sessions such as team building, problem solving and logic activities, and our social value team provided employability support including CV writing and mentoring to prepare candidates for interviews. 51 young people took part this year.

Social Value Officer, Luke Culling says “It has been fantastic to meet so many talented, inspiring and passionate people this week, all with an interest in MSPS and looking to become our newest employees. Their feedback will help shape how our Apprenticeship Academy grows and develops over the coming months and years”.

Interviews are being held over two days at the end of this week, to shortlist the most promising candidates who can demonstrate they have the commitment required to complete an apprenticeship and share our company ethos and values. Successful candidates will start around mid-August, giving the apprentices time to enrol with colleges or training providers before beginning their formal training in September.

For those that don’t make the shortlist, the pre-employment week will be a positive entry on their CV, and MSPS will be looking at ways to support their applications for future roles either with us, or within the industry.  This will include help to improve how they complete job applications and to support their job search.

Speaking about the Apprenticeship Academy, Director Paul Reader, who started his career as an apprentice, said: “It’s crucial that we attract and retain a diverse range of talent across the business, and that we support people throughout their career path with us. The Academy will provide a structured route to sustainable employment for young people whilst also enabling MSPS to ‘grow its own’ workforce to help fill the sector-wide skills shortage.”