Pump-making firm primes apprentices for success
A Wearside-based company is priming the pump for the future with the recruitment of four new apprentices.
Grundfos, which makes pumps at its plant in Castletown, has taken on Emily Kirkup, 18, from Durham, LewisEvans,16,fromSunderland and Matthew Phipps, 21, from Ryhope as production apprentices on four-year courses run through Sunderland College.
In addition, Robbie Crone, 16, from South Shields, has been recruited on an 18-month operations apprenticeship through the College.
Last September the company started six apprentices and in January 2020, took on five permanent employees on adult apprenticeship programmes.
John Austin, senior plant manager at Grundfos, said: “We’re delighted Emily, Lewis, Matthew and Robbie have joined us. It’s important to us to have a diverse and talented workforce and I look forward to our latest intake of apprentices helping to take the company forward.
“Our relationship with Sunderland College is still quite new to us, but we’re working well with them and they’re certainly helping us with a pipeline of local talent.”
Catherine Attwell, HR director, said: “We take training very seriously and a large percentageofourworkforcehave beenthroughourapprenticeship programme.
“Apprenticeships are a great way to train our workforceandwe’velongbeensupportersoftheseprogrammes. In the past we’ve offered apprentice opportunities for maintenanceandengineering technicians, as well as quality and business administration roles.
“We’ve enjoyed working with the apprenticeship team at Sunderland College. They helped identify and then recruit some first-class candidatesfortheplaceswehadand they made the whole process easy and straightforward.”
The production apprentices spend their first year at college before splitting their time between the classroom andtheplantovertheremainder of the course.
Each apprentice is assigned a Grundfos mentor to helpandsupportthemduring their training.
Grundfos, a Danish company, is the world’s leading pump manufacturer and employsmorethan18,000people globally.