In celebration of National Apprenticeship Week (8-14 February), Sodexo has announced that it has committed to transferring £800k of its annual apprenticeship levy to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).
This represents a 25% donation of the company’s £3.3m government levy to support apprenticeship training.
Sodexo has long been a passionate advocate of apprenticeships, and since the government introduced levy in 2017 to create long term sustainable funding for apprentices, Sodexo has been proactively encouraging its own employees to consider apprenticeships as a way of personal development, and using apprenticeships as a way of addressing identified skill gaps.
The company also takes a proactive approach to levy transfer to support other organisations who could benefit from apprenticeship training.
Sodexo ensures it is ‘gifting with purpose’ to employers that share the company’s ethos when it comes to health and safety, and ensuring their workforce is diverse and inclusive. Through levy transfer, Sodexo has so far supported 63 apprentices at SMEs, with more coming on board regularly.
One such SME is Fiesta Sports Coaching, an east Midlands-based provider of primary and secondary multisport camps and after-school clubs for children aged 4 to 18. The club has a focus on helping young people to develop through sport, aiming to foster a life-long love of being active.
Thanks to levy gifting from Sodexo, Fiesta Sports Coaching can train its coaches through a Community Sport and Health Apprenticeship.
John Mulholland, Director of Fiesta Sports Coaching, said, “Sodexo was recommended to us by our training provider, Aspire Training Solutions, and the partnership has been invaluable. It’s essential that our business can focus on the job of delivering our coaching services and running the company, rather than on how we will fund the training of our apprentices.
“Our apprentices will now receive the professional training required to become up-skilled team members who are capable of delivering our programmes and add extra value to the company and the local communities we operate in.”
Sue Davison, Head of Apprenticeships at Sodexo, added, “We are passionate about developing our own employees, but also to benefiting the communities in which we serve, and gifting our apprenticeship levy is a great opportunity to do this.
“We are building on our existing apprenticeships programme at Sodexo to ensure all appropriate vacancies and job roles are considered as an apprenticeship.
“We are also passionate about supporting SME growth and see apprenticeship levy gifting as a great opportunity to do something truly meaningful with long-term benefits.”