Leonardo is a large employer of engineering and business apprentices in the UK, with around 415 graduates and apprentices in training at different facilities across the country. They provide lots of different apprenticeship programmes, including aerospace engineering; manufacturing, designing and building helicopters; and defence electronics.
Leonardo operates a worldwide education programme aimed at encouraging young people throughout their academic careers to take an interest in science and technology. As a conscientious employer, they invest heavily in their apprenticeship provision to help the UK address its national skills gap in engineering.
The data they needed, with the quality they wanted
Culturally, apprentices are important to Leonardo’s and they have a strong need for them. As trailblazers delivering apprenticeships, it was also strategically important for them to be seen as leaders in their field. Leonardo previously used a different provider but approached Tribal as they realised with the growth of their apprenticeship programmes, they needed a reputable, market leader that could deliver the data management they needed with the quality they wanted.
Dealing with such high-profile products as defence helicopters, Leonardo understood that if they were audited and the auditor found errors, the reputational impact would be damning. It was vital that their data was accurate, timely and helpful to their business.
A partnership with Tribal
Leonardo began working with Tribal in 2012. Since then, the partnership has gone from strength to strength. The business acquired the market leading learner management system, Maytas, and opted for Tribal’s data management service team to work on behalf of Leonardo’s, to act as their data team; submitting all the funding claims for them, getting them audit ready, advising them on their apprenticeship programmes and helping to solidify what apprenticeship data needed to look like for the business.
Steve Palmer, Head of Education and Training at Leonardo said
“Tribal and Leonardo have more of a partnership rather than a contractual relationship. Tribal has helped Leonardo to understand the world of apprenticeship data – which has been helpful given there has been such a lack of information available at times.”
Steve went on to talk about how, with such an emphasis on quality, they needed a high-quality learner management system provider,
“As an aircraft manufacturer, quality is at the heart of what we do. We’re not looking to just be compliant but are continuously looking to drive quality and be the best that we can possibly be. Working with Tribal, the quality and consistency of data we receive is second to none – it means we have no doubt we can use the data for management and strategic decisions. Tribal partners with us to ensure we’re doing the right things.”
Providing the best experience possible
Rated Outstanding by Ofsted, Leonardo is a confident apprenticeship provider and has the time and people power to spend working on its student experience, and ultimately, student success. It is not wasting time dealing with administration errors or paper based processes. It is not trying to work out how best to report on its data or make sense of the latest funding changes. Leonardo is a company that focuses on its apprentices, as they are the lifeblood for what they do.
Leonardo’s Apprentice Training Manager, Ben Lavery said
“Without Tribal here at Leonardo we would struggle to do what we do and provide the best experience to apprentices; our time would be taken up doing admin tasks. Since we have been working with Tribal the real benefit is as an organisation, Tribal has helped Leonardo to focus and get the most out of what we do and our apprentices. Without Tribal we would not be as accurate or as knowledgeable as we are.”
Steve agreed, adding
“Our experience of managing apprenticeships has improved since working with Tribal, for one thing, we have more time to support learners.”
The student success rates at Leonardo is very high, with over 90% of apprentices successfully completing the programme. Leonardo really wants to offer their staff and students more than just 'a job' too. They want to offer them a chance to develop their skills and get a professional career with an industry-leading organisation.
