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Case Study: Megan Burroughs, Assistant Category Manager at BSS

Megan Burroughs started her journey in the Construction industry with an Apprenticeship at BSS, part of Travis Perkins plc, and now has upskilled and worked her way to becoming an Assistant Category Manager.

BSS has an ageing workforce which is predominantly male and depends on the colleagues’ strong knowledge base, which has been built up over many years of service. To help facilitate change, the business decided to establish a fast-track development programme where recruitment was targeted at a more diverse audience.

The target was to select high-potential talent and accelerate their progression to get them ready for assistant branch manager roles within two years with the help of a carefully tailored management apprenticeship. 

Following an overhaul of job adverts and a review of recruitment channels and the application process, the first cohort, which was recruited in 2021, consisted of nine women and one man – two apprentices for each of the five BSS regions.

Commercial Branch Support Supervisor, Megan Burroughs, was one of them: “In 2020, I started to study sociology at university. I enjoyed the subject, but when the pandemic hit, I moved back home and decided to quit, as I just wasn’t getting what I wanted from the course,” she explained. “I didn’t know anything about BSS, but what attracted me to the job was the pay, which was more than twice that of a normal apprenticeship role, the fact they looked beyond qualifications and offered me the chance to progress fast in a structured way.”

Megan has completed her Level 2 Trade Supplier Apprenticeship and is finalising her Level 3 Management Apprenticeship, which she will complete this summer. BSS has continued to use the fast-track development programme to attract further diversity into the business, building on the gender success of Megan’s cohort with ethnicity and ability.

Reflecting on her career journey so far within the industry, Megan says: “Being a young woman can be tough in this business sometimes, but I’ve been able to buy my own house at a time when my friends at uni are only just finishing, and I’ve had so much support and such a varied career already. I’ve worked in five different branches and recently moved into Commercial. I now just want to carry on moving up the career ladder, so I will most likely start another apprenticeship once this one comes to an end.”

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