At Your Housing Group, we care about all of our colleagues' development and we are passionate about watching them grow professionally and personally. 

We're proud to currently have 18 apprenticeships ongoing and 6 that have been successfully completed in the last year. 

Our Organisational Effectiveness Coordinator, Jen Ryan, who started out as an apprentice at #TeamYHG, is now completing a further apprenticeship qualification. 

Read about Jen's experience below. 

'Pre YHG

"Before joining Your Housing Group, I worked in Next for ten years. I worked across all departments including the stockroom and in my last two years I ran the cash office. 
I really enjoyed working at Next as it gave me valuable experience in my customer service skills as well as the confidence to train new colleagues to a high standard.
I enjoyed the organised chaos of early starts and late-night finishes for sale days, but I knew that I really wanted to work full time in a HR role. I began a new role for a short period of time in a debt collection solicitor whilst I looked for a HR job, but every role wanted a candidate with HR experience. I came across an apprenticeship at Your Housing Group to complete a Level 3 Business Administration qualification working in a HR & Payroll team which I knew I really wanted so I applied just for this job. I was successful in my interview and got the job. At first, I found myself being self-conscious about doing an apprenticeship at 30 years old, but I carried on and started the role.

At #TeamYHG

During my apprenticeship I initially focused on the mileage and expense procedure and quickly came the bank of knowledge for queries. All my colleagues in the HR & Payroll department were extremely supportive and great to work with. Throughout my course lockdown happened so I had to adjust to working from home. Working at Your Housing Group during the shift from the office to home working felt incredibly supported and organised due to the quick plans we had in place such as the implementation of MS Teams and regular communication through our company intranet. However, completing my apprenticeship from home felt very different and at times I felt I couldn’t do it but my line manager believed in my potential and when the stress felt too much he would help me not give up on all the hard work I had put in.
On the day of my assessment I listed to loud motivational music to help keep the imposter syndrome at bay and I ended up passing both parts of my apprenticeship with a distinction. From that I was taken on as HR Officer at Your Housing Group.

After some time as a HR Officer, at the office I saw two colleagues who work in our learning and development team deliver an online training session which made me realise that I missed training colleagues and wanted to work within the learning and development team.
A role in the learning and development team became vacant so I decided to apply. I listened to my motivational music and dressed the part (including heels for my remote interview too!) I was successful and got the job, I still got to work alongside my HR colleagues, but I got to regularly meet new colleagues too.  

After working in my new role for a year, I started an online apprenticeship in CIPD Level 3 Learning & Development. I am now halfway through my apprenticeship, and I love it. All my colleagues are extremely enthusiastic towards me and my goals in my role. My biggest achievement or enjoyment so far has been to provide training on Equality & Diversity to our operatives at a training day at our head office. I’m enjoying the creativity my role requires and I feel the creativity I once had has recently come back to me in this role. Alongside completing my apprenticeship, I am seeing different ways of approaching learning for me and for others at #TeamYHG.''