Whittaker Office Solutions offer products and services that enhance businesses; they know that keeping an office running smoothly demands functionality, service and efficiency. They listen, innovate and care about the small details. Helping other businesses is what they do every day.
During your apprenticeship you will support our customers through:
How will you be supported to achieve your Degree Apprenticeship?
A Personal University Mentor A personal University Mentor whose role is dedicated to ensuring that you excel with the Academic side of your apprenticeship. They will know you personally and will be your go to person for anything to do with university.
Your personal First Response Mentor Your personal First Response Mentor responsible for overseeing your whole apprenticeship, whether you have issues with work, uni or just generally needing someone to talk to.
Your colleagues Your peers other apprentices past and present, who will be there to support you drawing on their past experiences.
Your Line Manager Your line manager welcoming you to and teaching you the First Response way, allowing you to shine in your role
When you’re at university you will study in block days of around 2-3 days per module. You’ll normally attend university every 4-6 weeks and will be given your timetable every September. Don’t worry, your line managers at work will be aware of the time you need out of work, and you will be allocated this time throughout your apprenticeship with us.
During your time at university it is vital that you make the most of it – check out our Youtube channel for advice from our current apprentices. As your assignments are linked directly to the work you are doing, when you get back from University you will arrange meetings with colleagues and mentors, research your chosen topic, write up your report and discuss any issues or concerns you have with your personal mentors.
It is important to be organised and use your time efficiently as you will have much less than you may be used to!
Starting salary of £12,600 - Holiday allowance: 20 days per year + Bank Holidays - For each completed year of service, you will receive an additional day of holiday, up to 25 days per year. An additional 5 days of holiday are awarded after the completion of 5 years of service - Fully funded university degree - with no student debt! -
Be sensible and ensure everything is proportionate - We need to think before we act and checks and planning need to be proportionate to the complexity of the change to be made. Ensure that what matters to our customers is at the heart of what we do - If what we are doing is not servicing our customers’ demands we must challenge why we are doing it. Work towards perfection - Continually improve how we work by focusing on the valuable demands from our customers to become more efficient. Finish what we start before we start something new - Taking each piece of work as far as we sensibly can towards completion and only changing one thing at a time to ensure thorough investigation. Put ownership as close to the work as possible - Everyone should have the knowledge, support and authority to take ownership of our customers’ demands and do what’s right at the point of interaction. Check, plan, do, and re-check - Before we make changes we need to 'think' at each stage and validate why we’re doing what we’re doing and what we can do to make it better from the customer’s viewpoint. Make mistakes and learn from them - If we don’t make some mistakes we’re not trying hard enough to improve. We need to ensure we're learning from these. Challenge everything - Everything we do, and why we do it, can be challenged and changed to allow us to work towards perfection.
First Response Finance has always tried to support local charities as we know the money raised will make a real difference. We are currently supporting the charity SANE, a UK mental health charity who are combating stigma, providing support and funding research.
To raise money each staff member at First Response Finance has the opportunity to have breakfast in the office - a selection of juices, cereals, bread and pastries - for a small donation. The office also provides fizzy drinks for staff members to purchase at a small donation price which goes directly to charity. All of these donations go to SANE.
