Strengthening Early Careers at Coca-Cola for 2022

The last year certainly hasn’t come without its challenges, but we haven’t let these challenges throw us off course. We’ve strengthened our Early Careers programmes with more courses available to a wider range of students, all whilst taking every opportunity to celebrate our apprentices and the great work they do.  

Across the UK, the apprenticeship agenda has developed over the year with a focus on courses becoming more accessible and inclusive. We’ve also been working hard to challenge the stigma around apprenticeships and showcase to school leavers what a fantastic alternative pathway they offer.

All whilst having to adapt the way we work during the pandemic to ensure that young people don’t miss out on valuable learning and employment experiences.

Raising awareness and overcoming the stigma

At CCEP, we invest in people and we want to nurture the talent within our business so our employees can develop their skills. That’s why we’re so passionate about apprenticeships: we want to harness the natural talent young people have from early on in their career, and support them to grow and develop whatever their educational background. We put even more weight behind our Early Careers programmes in 2021, expanding the number of apprenticeships we offer by 75% and also re-introduced our graduate programme, so we can offer young people a range of different routes into the work place.

The aim of our outreach has been to change the perspective around apprenticeships, and in particular to challenge the perception that they are a ‘second-rate’ option. So, it’s heartening to me that we’ve seen a significant shift in the number of young people who are interested in apprenticeships, and students who see them as a credible and legitimate alternative to university. It’s great to see the narrative changing, as previously there has always been the presumption from parents and schools that someone with academic ability should take on the traditional path of university education, and this is what we need to work to eradicate.

I’m also incredibly proud that our current apprenticeship programme, and the people that work tirelessly to make it all happen, received some fantastic accolades in 2021. Recently we were highly commended in the National Apprenticeship Regional Awards – recognition which spurs me and my team on to work even harder to provide opportunities for young people.

Being great vehicles for inclusivity

A diverse and inclusive workplace is firmly at the forefront of our values at CCEP, and in 2022 we are committed to continuing this agenda within our Early Careers programme, building on the progress we’ve already made. Since 2014 we have increased the gender balance from 25% female to 40% today, and 11% of our apprentices are now from a black or Asian heritage. This is a huge step forwards, but next year we are dedicated to going further to ensure our workplace is as inclusive as possible.

Although we have some great apprenticeship schemes in place here at CCEP, from Level 2 right up to degree apprenticeships, we want to push ourselves to be able to offer the most suitable route for everyone. That’s why we’re aiming to develop more traineeships and T-Levels so that we are offering as many additional pathways as possible to help those from any background who may be interested in a career at a business like ours.  

Through our Career Builder programme, we also offer our employees the opportunity to develop their skills at any point in their career, or even retrain in a different department if they would like to change their path. The programme is centered on the belief that learning should be accessible at all levels within our business, so we have ensured that there is support in place for anyone who wants to further their skills. Since 2017, we’ve supported around 70 colleagues onto the Career Builder initiative – it’s fantastic to see so many want to use the programme to further their personal career journeys.

Responding to the pandemic

Even though part of 2021 saw us all working from home, we were determined to still offer our work experience to young people interested in gaining real life experience in the work place through our ReachUp programme. We re-designed the programme as a virtual experience so participants could have both live interaction and tutorials on demand, so they could fit the learning in around their lives. By doing this, we could reach more people and expose them to the opportunities on offer at a business like ours. This was critical as we know young people had already been impacted by the pandemic, so by continuing with our work experience, albeit virtually, we still helped provide an opportunity to develop some soft skills that will help equip them for the workplace.

The virtual structure also works particularly well for schools, as it means students can learn and start to understand the skills they would gain on an alternative career path. Far too often a schools’ focus is on higher education at university, but through initiatives like this we are firmly planting apprenticeships as a strong option for school leavers.

As a responsible business, we believe it’s important to help young people overcome barriers, by giving them access to the corporate world and to role models in the form of youth workers and our CCEP volunteers. We also took part in the Government’s Kickstart scheme this year, which proved a huge success as we welcomed 24 people into the business for six months – six of whom secured full time positions at the end of their training. After spending time with these brilliant young people, we can see the impact the experience of working in a corporate environment has had. We want to continue opening up opportunities like this, supporting under-represented groups who may have a perception that opportunities with large corporate organisations like CCEP won’t be available to them, so we’re aiming to repeat the Kickstart scheme in 2022 as well.

We expanded our work for early careers outside of our business too, to help other companies be able to offer apprenticeships that we cannot at CCEP. Last year saw the start of our levy transfer for the London Ambulance Service. We pledged to donate £100,000 a year for three years so that the London Ambulance Service can fund training employees for an Ambulance Practitioner Level 4 qualification. We know how valuable apprenticeships are in our own operation, so it’s fantastic we are able to support others; the NHS is a critical part of our infrastructure in the UK and we felt this was a cause we’d really like to get behind.

Looking ahead to 2022

Our priorities for the year ahead are to continue to offer a range of apprenticeships for all levels, whether a school leaver or a long-standing CCEP employee. It’s important for us to be able to help our employees develop in areas they are passionate about, so I’m excited to see our Early Careers offering continue to grow in 2022 and beyond.

This year had a fantastic start as I was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list. It is a huge accolade and one I am extremely proud of, and I am grateful to CCEP for trusting me to fortify and further our early careers programmes. I am determined to use the platform this has given me to help amplify the alternative career paths available and the importance of apprenticeships in the UK.

My work as a Non-Executive board member of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) also helps me further the apprenticeship agenda, and I’m looking forward to continuing this in 2022. I’ve been actively working on their Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy and approach as well as leading their Large Employer forum to ensure organisations have an amplified voice in the sector, and we plan to take this even further this year.

In 2022 we will do all we can to make apprenticeships more accessible, not just at CCEP, but nationwide and continue to extinguish the outdated perceptions that apprenticeships are a second-class career path for a successful future.

By Sharon Blyfield