Pioneering the way for tomorrow’s engineers, designers and creatives, Blum has recently taken on three business apprentices here in the UK. Billie Watts, Sam Daniels and Nicola Cox will all undertake the two-year course, which includes a six-month rotation between Technical; Sales Administration and Order Processing; and the Accounts Department; with a final six-month vocation split between Marketing, Sales & Warehousing and IT.
The trainees are Billie Watts, a photography graduate with a passion for modern art; Sam Daniels, a psychology graduate with a keen interest in football and Nicola Cox, who has previously worked as a make-up artist for Bobbi Brown cosmetics. All three have developed an interest in kitchen planning and fitting and are looking forward to the new challenges ahead.
“This is a chance to work with a recognised, established company,” says Sam Daniels, “who are going to give me the chance to experience many different roles within a business, helping me discover what I am best at and what I enjoy while enhancing the skills I already have. Hopefully in two years’ time, I will be an established, fully fledged member of the Blum team, working in a role that I love and excel in.”
Nicola Cox is also looking forward to the opportunities that lie ahead. “I am very eager to learn and understand how each department operates,” she says. “Blum is forever growing and I am keen to see what exciting new doors may open within the company over the coming years.”
“I was attracted to a company who obviously value training,” adds Billie Watts. “After doing my research about Blum, I was impressed with the company’s reputation, culture and values, and I jumped at the opportunity to become a part of it.”
The aim of the scheme is to build up a bank of knowledgeable staff members who understand the business from all angles. There is also the guarantee of a role at the end of the two-year placement.
In Austria, Blum offers one of the biggest apprenticeship schemes in the country with 80 new apprentices beginning their technical training in September 2016. This brings the total number of Blum Group apprentices to 309 with 13 based in the US and three in the UK.
