Member Article

Huddersfield chemical firm Syngenta encourages apprenticeships after taking on new recruits

One of Huddersfield’s largest businesses, chemical firm Syngenta, is set to employ a further 8 apprentices and is encouraging other Kirklees firms to do the same.

Syngenta, which employs over 400 people at its manufacturing facility on Leeds Road in the town, receives around 130 applications every year across the business.

The company want to ensure young people see the long-term career opportunities presented by choosing to be an apprentice. Many of those who began on their apprenticeship scheme have gone onto be permanent employees and some have even progressed into management.

Ian Nunn, learning and development facilitator from Syngenta who manages the company’s apprentices in Kirklees said: “Apprentices are hugely important to our business.

“For us, they are not a short-term fix but a long-term solution to recruiting high quality individuals into our business, giving them the skills they need and then allowing them to have a career with Syngenta that benefits both them and us.

“We pay our apprentices well from day one because we want them to be seen like any other employee. They provide us with stability and continuity plus the opportunity to grow our business while at the same time growing their own careers.”

Syngenta receives six times the number of applications to join their apprenticeship scheme than places available and Ian adds the quality of those signing up is increasing all the time:

“Apprenticeships offer a genuine alternative to the traditional route of going from school to college to university and, while there will always be a role for graduates in businesses like ours, we want becoming an apprentice to be something more and more young people consider and more and more schools promote to their students.”

One of the apprentices currently working at Syngenta is Maariyah Rawat from Batley. She started with the company a year ago after getting her A-level results. She said: “I wanted a hands-on job where I would be working and learning and also didn’t want to come out of higher education with a lot of debt.

“Syngenta are committed to ensuring apprentices are treated just like any other employee and, if you put the work in and commit to it fully, they want you to stay with them for your career keeping the skills they have helped you develop within their business.”

Kirklees is one of eight Apprenticeship Hubs in the Leeds City Region promoting the benefits of being and taking on apprentices.

Businesses with fewer than 1000 employees, and who have not taken on an apprentice in the last year, can take advantage of a £1,500 grant to support their recruitment as part of the scheme.

Further information about apprenticeships in Kirklees is available on the website at www.kirklees.gov.uk/apprenticeships.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .