Peterson's National Apprenticeship Week - Interview with Amanda Mason, SDS

I have with me Amanda from Skills Development Scotland and Bradley one of the apprentices for Peterson group. Amanda. Tell me more about National Apprenticeship Week. Why is it something that SDS are so passionate about?

It's really important to highlight the importance of apprenticeships throughout the whole of Scotland foundation model and graduate apprenticeship programs are really important to engage young people and it's really important that companies like Peterson continue to employ apprentices and give them those opportunities. It really is, bringing on that new workforce is such an important part of the transition going forward.

Do you think that, the organisations like Peterson not just benefit from the long-term value of this but the short term value of having these new faces and new thinking and new ideas coming into the workforce?

Definitely it gives young people an insight into industry, it lets them have an opportunity to see what real working life is like and it helps them steer their career direction.

So Bradley, you're one of the apprentices here at Peterson, it must have been a slightly different week for you.

Yeah, it was a lot more exposure obviously by the media. I've been down to Parliament on Wednesday night and that was good for me in a sense of not only finding out about obviously other apprentices were sharing the story of myself. It was obviously good to hear how much funding is actually been put into their apprenticeships and young people across Scotland.

So, as someone that's currently doing an apprenticeship. What advice would you give to someone who's maybe thinking about signing up?

I'd say go ahead with it, I mean, a lot of people go down the route of University but apprenticeships provide on-the-job experience obviously, there's plenty of opportunities to grow especially here at 80/20. I can progress through the ranks of assistant buyer, buyer, senior buyer, key account manager, so that's years to come down the line and obviously we've got our parent company Peterson as well. So even if I just decided that I didn't want a future in procurement, there's still other opportunities in the business.

You definitely sound like a man with a plan, I’m very impressed by that, that's fantastic and hearing that does that help shape your thinking and give you some indication as to the importance of the projects that you're involved with Amanda?

Definitely, we need young people to inspire the next generation of apprentices, so it's really important. Peterson this week have been out to some schools to highlight their future opportunities, and I think that it’s really important that we've got ambassadors to do that.