Johnny Daws – Supervisor and Cellar Manager at The Gloucester Old Spot

“Doing my apprenticeship with HIT Training alongside my job has helped me to take more pride in my work.”

Why an apprenticeship?

My personal mission in life is to make a positive and lasting impact while excelling in everything I do. By working in hospitality, I have the opportunity to do this daily by providing great customer service and improving my technical skills. I’ve worked in hospitality and been part of the team at The Gloucester Old Spot for my entire career so far.

Eager to take the next step in my career, I wanted to learn new skills to give our customers a great experience, help our team members and become a leader. With my manager firmly behind me and my goals, we worked together to find suitable and practical training solutions. After a short time searching, I started my Level 3 Hospitality Supervisor apprenticeship with HIT Training, aiming to start an exciting new journey and take on new responsibilities.

My HIT Training Consultant, Richard, immediately helped me to improve my skillset and become an asset to my business. After a short amount of time on my apprenticeship, I was able to take on the responsibilities of health and safety representative and cellar manager.

Benefitting my business

In the pursuit of gaining more responsibility and making life easier for our team, I took charge of the day-to-day operations of our cellar. Through the learning in my apprenticeship, I was able to consistently rotate our beers, keep a detailed cellar tracker, including how to keep our stock up-to-date, and maintain a high standard of cleanliness.

In addition, I’ve led a project with my team where we created a range of new and exciting drinks in our business. This included new profiles for our gin products, which improved both the quality of our product range and the number of choices for our customers.

Working in hospitality while undertaking an apprenticeship during a global pandemic highlighted the importance of implementing robust health and safety measures. In addition to normal health and safety measures, I created a COVID-19 risk assessment that could be adapted as the pandemic progressed. This decreased the risk of the pandemic affecting our business and helped keep both my colleagues and customers safe.

The HIT Training difference

Throughout my journey, I’ve learnt how to make positive changes that help our team and give our customers a better experience. This has improved my confidence and shown me I’m capable of anything that I set my mind to. Richard has provided amazing professional and developmental support that’s helped me to make positive changes that benefit my business.

In addition to implementing changes, I’ve been able to teach what I’ve learned to the rest of our team. This has helped me to establish myself as a leader, by empowering our team with new skills that our customers can have confidence in. In November 2021 I completed my apprenticeship and passed with a distinction!

Doing my apprenticeship with HIT Training alongside my job has helped me to take more pride in my work. I’m delighted with the work I’ve done so far and I’m excited for what the future holds for myself and The Gloucester Old Spot.