Storm Academy: Meet the mentors
In the second of our Storm Academy blog series, we're focusing on our mentors who provide guidance, support and growth opportunities to our apprentices.
The Storm Academy mentors are a key component of our Modern and Graduate Apprenticeship program, as they are fundamental source of guidance and support to them. Storm Academy spans across three departments which includes our Technical, Creative and IT Operations teams. We are hoping to roll out the academy across multiple departments in the future and thus grow our mentorship programme.
Who are the Storm Academy mentors?
A key aspect of the Storm Academy is that it provides our mentors with an opportunity to develop their own personal management skills, whilst passing their experience and technical knowledge to our apprentices. Each department has a team of mentors, we caught up with three mentors to discuss their experiences so far at Storm Academy.
Kyle, a Developer within our Technical team, joined Storm ID as an Associate in 2015 and is one of the technical team mentors. Kyle expressed an interest in mentoring within the Storm Academy to strengthen his management skills and support the future development of Storm ID employees in a formal capacity. He shared with us that his experience as a mentor has been rewarding, as it has given him the opportunity to manage both his continued learning and training of apprentices with his own workload.
"It’s a chance to be involved in some brilliant projects and discussions and in return it’s really rewarding. I joined Storm through a similar process myself and know that it’s a fantastic benefit to all involved."
Mick, our Technical and Front-End Lead, is one of our line managers and mentors within the creative team and joined Storm ID as one of the earliest specialist front-end developers in 2005. Being one of the first hires into the front-end team, Mick has been involved in a range of exciting projects and has developed his team to shape and promote the continuous learning of future creative minds of Storm ID.
"It is rewarding to see a person improve and to share in their successes. This also benefits the mentor too – cementing knowledge, identifying gaps in their own understanding, and questioning their own assumptions."
Ryan, our IT Ops Manager, is another of our line managers and mentors within the operations team, who joined Storm in 2020. Ryan has always been passionate about apprenticeships as this is where his journey began. He knew from an early age that IT was his passion and made it his mission follow that dream.
Ryan has always had a desire to expand his team and the launch of Storm Academy was the perfect opportunity to provide an apprenticeship as a mentor. He described this decision as one that provides a different route to a successful career in IT, that could only enrich the experiences of the team.
"Being a mentor and manager with the Storm Academy is the best opportunity to develop young people and see things from different viewpoints."
A career in software development requires continuous learning due to the rapidly evolving environment. Storm Academy mentors develop knowledge, encourage learning and provide motivation and direction that equips our Apprentices with the tools to appraise and continue to learn as their careers progress.