London Cycle Hire Scheme

1. London Cycle Hire Scheme Apprenticeship Opportunities through Procurement Bringing Learning to Life Julie Dover, HR Lead

2. London Cycle Hire Scheme

3. LCHS - Staffing • Over 270 jobs created. • 110 contact centre staff. • 160 on street staff including technicians, redistribution and routine maintenance. • Recruitment focused on unemployed and disadvantaged groups • Apprenticeship scheme offered to individuals not in education, employment and training. • Supported by Job Centre Plus & NAS

4. Apprentices - Background • We initially committed to introduce 2 or 3 Apprentice posts (SLNT) • Reviewed our organisation model and decided that we could provide wider opportunities, if we could find a cycling apprenticeship • Supported by NAS to identify appropriate training programme and provider • Established a dedicated role to undertake cleaning and minor repairs on the bicycles and docking stations and provide front-line customer support • Initially recruited 27 Apprentices • Currently have 22 – aged between 16 and 25 • They have attended a two week intensive training programme with ATG prior to go-live of our service • They have regular review meetings with their training provider to assess their competence

5. Apprentices - Challenges • Funding was withdrawn after we had made offers to 27 candidates • We had to find the funds internally to honour our commitment • Managing a large group of young people is extremely challenging • Some are frustrated by the lack of challenge that they have in their role and don’t see the potential opportunities for them • Some are immature and need careful managing • Getting them to turn up for work in the morning is a nightmare! • We have had to terminate some contracts and have chosen to recruit more mature individuals to balance the team dynamics • It is early days in the life of our contract • Some are extremely talented and have a bright future • Some of them are genuine Ambassadors and love helping our customers

6. Future - Bringing Learning to Life • We will shortly be launching a scheme to offer opportunities for 3 Apprentices to be seconded into other roles • They will be asked to formally apply for these opportunities and will be interviewed by the specialist leads – we will take into consideration current performance, timekeeping and attitude • They will be provided with a buddy from the teams to encourage and support them • We will ensure they receive some basic training to enable them to be of value and to contribute to the team • We will be looking at how we multi-skill them to strength our skill base • They will be asked to pull together a portfolio/passport of their experience • At the end of the secondment they return to their substantive role and re-apply for other opportunities • This approach will strengthen internally our succession plan

7. Lessons Learned • We need to work much closer with ATG to establish competency profiles • Our Team Leaders need training to manage their apprentices • The behaviour and attitudes of some of the apprentices are tarnishing the reputation of the real ambassadors • Learn from our mistakes • We should have recruited smaller numbers to start with • We would then have a scaled succession plan over the life of the contract

8. Any Questions