At Nestlé UK and Ireland, we have a long history of supporting youth employment and have been investing in apprenticeships for almost 60 years.
They’ve proven to be invaluable to ourselves and our apprentices, as they’ve provided them with the chance to start building their careers and skills while embedding themselves within the workplace.
We know how daunting it can be for young people to take those first career steps, so we believe that the food and drink sector should continue to support youth employment via apprenticeship routes.
An injection of fresh and diverse thinking
New talent and skills are essential to maintaining the vitality of any organisation, and this is particularly true for our industry, as consumers’ needs and the issues affecting our work continue to gather and change at pace.
We’ve often found that the young people who join our apprenticeship schemes have new ways of approaching and thinking about these topics, and they are keen to make a tangible and positive impact on how we operate. It is, therefore, crucial that we continue to give them the opportunity to do so in a meaningful way.
We ensure our apprenticeships are also open to people from all backgrounds, which encourages a diverse set of views amongst our teams. It’s important to ensure the food and drink industry reflects the communities it serves, as there are so many different people who buy, eat and drink our products.
By welcoming difference in the sector, we can unlock more creativity and create stronger connections with consumers, which will help our people and businesses grow together.
Building the skills we need for the future
The development of new, green skills is a huge priority for the Government at the moment, and we know that they are also in high demand across the food and drink sector.
Apprenticeships can be a fantastic opportunity to provide people entering the industry with a chance to gain sustainability skills during their placements. This will not only set them up for success in their future careers but also push our sector forwards so we can meet our collective goals.
Beyond providing exposure to this area in an apprentice’s day-to-day role, we’ve also seen real success in growing their sustainability skills by encouraging our apprentices to join and contribute to our extracurricular ‘One World’ sustainability programme.
They get to meet with colleagues across the business who are passionate sustainability advocates and learn more about the work we’re doing to support our sustainable development goals. We empower them to take action, so they can help us to achieve them and learn new skills while they do so.
Inspiring the leaders of tomorrow
Apprenticeships can be a good way to gain industry experience and get an opportunity to start a career.
In fact, many of our managers and senior leaders started their careers with us as apprentices or graduates. Our programmes have allowed them to experience a range of roles during their time at the company, which has built their skillset and provided us with colleagues who have an in-depth understanding of how the business operates.
We will continue to engage with schools, universities and colleges to raise awareness of the apprenticeship opportunities there are within Nestlé.
Offering apprenticeships isn’t just the right thing to do for our industry – it is also vital for our collective success.
