This week we welcome 2 bright and aspiring young men to the Efficiency North team as a Kickstart Gateway Employer. A huge warm welcome to 18 year old Curtis Evans and 24 year old Mackenzie Herriott! We were able to offer both fantastic opportunities within the procurement team as our new Procurement Assistants who will be supporting the Procurement team.
EN:Procure initially had only one Kickstart position available to work in their specialist procurement team. However two candidates impressed the team with their skills and positive attitude so both have joined the team!
Mackenzie comes to us from a background in Art and Design and is very passionate and creative, having done lots of Art projects around Sheffield. Mackenzie loves sketching and drawing and is a very structured and organised person with lots of valuable, transferable skills which we're sure to see shine through in his new role as Procurement Assistant. Mackenzie has been working with Emma Mottram and Lewis Collier to grasp an understanding of how Procurement works using our systems such as Proactis and Microsoft programs, lots of fun Excel spreadsheeting going on!
Mackenzie is having a great first week, he tells us -
'I have found my first week already quite interesting. I have learned more about the company and also improving my skills with things such as Microsoft.'
We also asked Mackenzie if he has faced any challenges in his first week, he said -
'There has been a few challenges with learning how to use and understand things like Proactis but I managed to overcome that issue.'
We're delighted to have Mackenzie join us and support the Procurement team, we're confident he'll be a true asset to the team and bring lots of fresh new ideas on board.
Curtis joins us from a background of Creative Digital Practice, with his impressive skills in Game Development from his Foundation and BA standard degrees at Derby University. He also has experience in developing and creating websites when he was at school (look out Comms team...)
In his spare time he enjoys uploading his most recent projects of his current passion, 3D modelling to ArtStation. During his first week has been working closely with Carl Bairstow, our Head of Membership Development getting to grips with how things work and practicing sending out important emails to staff, issuing calendar invites and important research into CRM systems to learn what they are and which one is best suited to EN's needs.
We asked Curtis how he's found his first week -
'I've found it to be pretty fun, to my surprise, it's been really nice and welcoming. Carl has definitely made it more interesting than I had anticipated haha! Everyone makes it feel like a relaxed environment, in a good way. I thought I'd be stressing quite a lot or maybe overwhelmed with trying to understand how to do stuff or how things work but the slow gradual ease into the role, definitely helped a lot. I didn't expect Lee to be so chill since he's the big boss but because of that, and Carl and Emma, and everyone else, it feels like I'll be fine and up to the tasks that will be required of me in the future'.
So far so good! We look forward to supporting Curtis in the rest of his Kickstart journey!
We're proud to be a part of the gateway scheme, granting access to young people desperately seeking work experience to help excel them in their later careers, supporting the younger generation and opening up those doors early on sets them up for a properous and successful career ahead.