Apprenticeship Levy and Funding Analyst Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with E.ON. It provided a wide range of opportunities to experience new and interesting things such as site visits and day trips. It was informative and educational which helped me to develop my industry knowledge. This will help me later to further develop business cases whilst in education.

My opinion was something which became important after a while. I became knowledgeable in an area which was new and complex and as such people wanted to know what my interpretation of a situation was. There was also many social events outside of work which I was invited to from week one which made me feel part of the team very quickly.

I was supported by managers when looking for information in regards to the prescribed task. This helped me to arrange meetings and events in order to develop my knowledge further. As the primary point of contact, it was good to be able to talk to people who knew exactly what I needed to do to gain valuable information.

You get from the experience what you put in. If you want to do get a real feel for the business and the industry then you could be very busy as you will have to travel around and meet lots of people. If you choose to be insular and focused solely on one thing then you may not be overly busy.

Depending on the task, you could be the only person responsible for a research piece or you could be working within a team to complete a task. The amount of responsibility therefore changes with the task. However, I did feel as though I had a large amount of responsibility when creating an education piece for E.ON.

I was able to better develop my communication and writing skills whilst on this placement. This helped me to develop a report with purpose, but it also showed me what is expected of a business report in the real world. I can take this back to university to better improve my academic writing.

The office has a very open and friendly feel. There is generally a vibe of enthusiasm as E.ON progresses towards a more customer focused company. This means that everyone is very receptive to suggestions on how we could implement best practices and improve on procedures and processes. All in all it’s a fun office.

The actual planning of the placement was very thorough. We had induction sessions and progress reviews as well as off boarding talks in order to determine what E.ON could do differently next time. However, the projects were quite short and there could have been more planning around the different opportunities to do work.

I was made aware of the different up skilling opportunities a little too late for me to actual capitalise on this. However, having said that there are opportunities available and it perhaps should be one of the first things that any future placement ask for. I did have the chance to sit in on training sessions, even if I was not actively developing my skills.

E.ON is very keen to provide up skilling to its employees and there is a wide array of ways to go about doing so. This can vary from apprenticeships to one of training sessions. There is also a lot of flexibility to change roles and to go on secondment to experience other areas of the business. This makes it an appealing employer.

We regularly went out for drinks and to cafes. There was always something going on, be it a night at a board game café or a day out at an outlet shopping centre. These events weren’t organised by the business, but by the people on placement so it is highly recommended that you get to know everyone.

The cost of living is fairly cheap. There are some areas that are more expensive than down south. The average weekly shop is about £5 more expensive, but rent is very cheap at just £100 per week. If alcohol is your thing, then this too is well priced and as expected for a city in the midlands.

I am not a drinker so the nightlife was not really something that I had much of an experience with. However, there are many clubs, pubs, and cafes in Nottingham all of which are easily accessible by tram and bus. All of them are also very central and close to each other so you can easily go from one to another.

We regularly went out for drinks and to cafes. There was always something going on, be it a night at a board game café or a day out at an outlet shopping centre. These events weren’t organised by the business, but by the people on placement so it is highly recommended that you get to know everyone.