MITIE, the strategic outsourcing and asset management company, has awarded the prestigious title – the Real Apprentice 2009 – to joint winners Gary Cupid and Abdul Razak.
The ceremony was held at Morgan Stanley’s offices in Canary Wharf and was well attended by over 100 guests including MITIE’s managers and clients, members of ELBA (East London Business Alliance), past apprentices and other Corporate Responsibility professionals. The award was handed out by Chief Executive of ELBA, Liam Kane and MITIE’s HR Director, Joanne Bacon.
The Real Apprentice is a best practice employer-led training programme run in conjunction with ELBA. It is currently open to everyone between the ages of 17-25 and takes away the barriers to employment faced by young people from disadvantaged areas in East London.
The apprentices are each given two weeks pre-placement training followed by ten weeks work experience on one of MITIE’s contracts. This could be learning about reprographics at PricewaterhouseCoopers, or getting to grips with the latest bird control techniques with our pest control business.
The winners were chosen from the 30 successful candidates who successfully completed the 12 week training course on MITIE’s London contracts and it was decided to give the award to joint winners this year after two individuals stood out from the rest:
One of the winners, Gary Cupid 25 from Hackney had just finished a media production degree at university and was unable to find a job when he learnt about the Real Apprentice scheme. After applying to the scheme through his local job centre, he was assigned to MITIE’s contract at Landflex working for the facilities management team. From day one Gary was eager to prove his worth and value to the organisation and set his own personal bar high to ensure that he reached his own and the MITIE’s objectives. Over the twelve weeks Gary achieved many victories and his self confidence grew enormously. He is now working full-time for MITIE as a Facilities Assistant on the Landflex contract.
Commenting on Gary, his Account Manager working for MITIE on the Landflex account said: “Gary should be very proud of his achievements. His behaviour and aptitude over the 12 weeks was not one of an apprentice but one of a professional Facilities Manager. I don’t know if Gary is the best real apprentice, but believe me if there is someone ahead of him, they must be a very rare person as Gary is a jewel that doesn’t come often in life.”
The other joint winner was Abdul Razak (Raz) 26 from Tower Hamlets. Raz was previously working in retail and after signing up to the Real Apprentice scheme was placed at MITIE’s office in the Docklands. Raz was chosen as a winner as he was always upbeat, friendly and a complete joy to have in the team. He supported his management team with great efficiency and accuracy and they felt that they could completely rely on him due to his professionalism in the job. In fact they thought that Abdul was so good that he is now working full-time for MITIE as an operations administrator in the Docklands.
Abdul’s manager commented: “He is proactive and flexible and gets the job done. He is very organised and has created simple IT systems to effectively manage his workload. Abdul was always well presented, eager to learn and eager to adapt. Not only did he learn everything we asked him to, but he even showed his team how to do things differently. He wanted nothing more than to be given a chance and has worked so hard to make the most of his opportunity.”
Both Gary and Raz have since mentored other Real Apprentices in the October scheme and have been outstanding representatives for MITIE, their communities and the Real Apprentice scheme. They both have a bright future within the organisation. Abdul even entered MITIE’s national talent competition - MITIE’s Got Talent and his dance routine was chosen as one of the eight acts in the final of the competition, performing at MITIE’s annual management conference in September 2008.
Gary Cupid, one of the winners of the overall award said:
“For Raz and I to have won the Real Apprentice is a fantastic achievement. After 12 weeks working at MITIE, I have come such a long way and now have a career and a good idea of what I want to do in life. I am so grateful to MITIE and ELBA to have given me the chance to learn new skills and apply them in a business environment.”
Jane James, Employment Regeneration Director, MITIE added:
“We had such a high calibre of apprentices this year, it was always going to be difficult to pick the winner but Gary and Abdul really shone through and both performed beyond all expectations. We are very proud of what they and all the apprentices have achieved. With unemployment on the rise schemes like the Real Apprentice are now more important than ever and I would encourage every company to adopt similar schemes to help in the regeneration of East London.”
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For further information, contact:
David Revis, Investor Relations and PR Manager, MITIE Group PLC
T: 020 7034 7306 M : 07979 702465 E: david.revis@mitie.co.uk
Notes for editors
About MITIE
We’re the strategic outsourcing and asset management company.
What does that mean in practice? Providing everything from strategic consultancy, to world-class delivery on the ground. From long-term infrastructure planning, to facilities management, property and engineering services. Our strategic input can add value at the highest level, while our practical management expertise can save customers money and maximise their returns.
At the same time, it’s not just what we do, but how we do it that makes us different. Our people are passionate about what they do, committed to working in partnership with their clients, and will always look for a fresh answer to a new challenge.
We work with our clients in three ways; some take full advantage of our whole range of expertise by buying the whole suite, others may only need one aspect of what we do:
Strategy and consultancy
+ Facilities and project management
+ Service delivery
In other words, we think, we manage, and we deliver.
The thinking phase is all about finding strategic answers to long-term challenges about assets and resources. Facilities and project management puts those plans in place, and our unrivalled range of services is one of the best in the business.
There’s a lot more to MITIE than you probably think. We’re a big company with big ambitions - a leading FTSE 250 support services business, with 49,000+ people, revenues in excess of £1.4bn, and a reputation for being the best.
