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Age is not a barrier to my learning and development journey

Category: Generation (Age Friendly)

Career and Talent Development

Age is not a barrier to my learning and development journey

 

As an employer ranked fifth in the Apprenticeships Top 100 Employers, DWP are committed to helping our colleagues build new skills. Apprenticeships are for all ages, whether you are a young person entering the workforce or looking for a career change. Our colleague Gary explains his experience of starting an apprenticeship at 48.

I left school in the 80’s and yes I did have a Rubik’s cube, cassettes and fluorescent socks. Although I went to college for a few months all my friends were getting jobs and earning money and I thought that sounds like a good idea, so left sixth form and got my first job in a building society.

I did several jobs before joining DWP in 1998 where I worked within HR in Baskerville House, Manchester……I really enjoyed my role and worked there for 6 years before our local HR Team was centralising. I left DWP and had several other jobs as well as spending some time in Australia and owning my own business and fast forward a few years to 2017 when I re-joined DWP. I worked in operations for a while and then spent some time in Business Support and in 2019 gained promotion to HEO within PC&P on the Wellbeing and Inclusion team. I had always been passionate about Diversity and Inclusion and at 48 had finally found the career path that I was always meant to be on. Some find their career path early in life but for me it came a lot later, but this was definitely not going to hold me back as far as developing and progressing now that I had found my vocation.

I saw an opportunity on the intranet for a HR Apprenticeship where you could also gain your CIPD accreditation and thought that would be a great development opportunity and something that I had regretted not doing when I was younger and worked in HR previously. I applied and began my HR Apprenticeship journey.

At first it was a little daunting as I had to learn how to do Harvard referencing and writing 4000+ word assignments, and not going to Uni this was all relatively new to me. I soon got into this new studying regime and although it was hard work with lots of research and essay writing I really, really enjoyed it and found that I had a real appetite for learning new things. The great thing was that I was able to use all my learning within my role and felt that my apprenticeship journey had really increased both my credibility as a HR professional and also my confidence.

My knowledge increased and gained so many new skills including using new project management techniques, negotiating skills, looking at different factors which impact on an organisation and its HR function, ethics and accountability, change management, labour market trends, workforce planning, talent retention, critical analysis and employment law. The apprenticeship really opened my eyes to the different areas of HR and discovered I had a real passion for research and analysis. I can’t look at an article anymore without questioning whether it is reliable, credible, authentic and current!

The knowledge and skills that I gained were certainly a contributing factor in me successfully achieving my SEO within Finance Group.

I’m 50 now and want to reiterate that it is never too late to start an apprenticeship and can’t recommend it enough. I am now an associate member of CIPD and it’s been a fantastic experience and am grateful to DWP for supporting me to undertake this apprenticeship.

I just want to say to anyone reading this that some of us are not always sure what we want to do when we leave School, and not everyone chooses to go to university but what I can honestly say is that within DWP age is definitely not a barrier to thriving. At 50 I’ve still got a lot more that I want to achieve and will continue learning and developing and it’s great to know that I have DWP’s support on my journey.

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VERCIDA works with over one hundred clients who are committed to creating an inclusive work environment. If you are an employer and interested in working with VERCIDA to promote your diversity and inclusion initiatives and attract the best candidates, please email [email protected] for more information.

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Department for Work and Pensions

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