A Successful Partnership in Housing
A Coventry housing association that provides affordable housing to around 40,000 households across England, is celebrating the success of its apprenticeship programme in association with Coventry & Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce Training.
Orbit Housing, based on Binley Business Park in Coventry, provides a number of solutions to housing problems by offering homes to rent and buy. All of their properties are designed to suit a wide variety of people with a range of needs including help to buy equity loans, shared ownership and independent living care for the over 55s.
The financial team at the housing association were looking to change training providers and turned to Chamber Training for support and guidance in December 2018.
Commenting Lisa Massey, Future Talent Consultant at Orbit Housing said: “Our two apprentices, Tom Barber and Zoe Shale were both studying at college but were not happy with the guidance offered by an alternative training provider. This was directly impacting on their learning so we started sourcing an alternative. Since commencing their AAT level 3 with Chamber Training, they have grown in confidence and are very much part of our Finance Team in Orbit. We are also delighted to say that have been taken on permanently.”
The Marketing & Communications Team at Orbit regularly enter the business for numerous awards and the Directorate was informed of the opportunity to submit entries for the ‘Most Inspiring Apprenticeship Programme’ category for the Inspire Awards, and ‘Apprentice of the Year Award’ for the Housing Heroes Award. As the apprentices had done so well with their group project based on Wellbeing, receiving so much praise and recognition from their colleagues, it was an obvious choice to submit Tom and Zoe, as part of the group of Apprentices put forward for this award. They were selected as finalists, which was a fantastic achievement.”
Lisa continued: “We have a large finance team at Orbit which is extremely significant within the business and we place a high importance on having qualified staff to undertake their roles. We are always looking at the development and growth of our employees and we have already seen a lot of potential in Zoe and Tom, which is testament to their hard work and dedication.
“From a provider’s perspective, Chamber Training has played an active and supportive role in helping us to find the right candidates. We have also taken on three more accountancy Apprentices, Ameen Malik who joined Orbit in March 2019 and is settling in well plus two more Apprentices will join Orbit on 10th September 2019 and will be studying with Chamber Training.”
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L to R: Tom Barber, Ameen Malik, Zoe Shale from Orbit Housing are seen here with Nicky Cheshire from Chamber Training.