News / Mike Turner – Realising A Dream Career
Inspiro Training work in partnership with Joseph Holt, a highly successful brewer and pub operator, to deliver life-changing hospitality apprenticeships. The company place a major emphasis on this aspect of employee advancement:
“It’s important for us to invest in training our staff to develop skills and knowledge that will ultimately help people achieve their potential. Our internal progression programmes and apprenticeships do just that! You can truly come for a job and discover a career.”
Case Study – Mike Turner
Following in his family’s footsteps and with the lifelong ambition of becoming a professional chef, Mike started working at Joseph Holt as a Sous Chef in 2013. Having fully settled into the company, in 2015 he embarked on the company’s Professional Cookery Level 2 apprenticeship scheme with Inspiro. Achieving this was essential to his progression towards the next step on the career ladder.
Carolyn Jones proved to be the ideal trainer to support, guide and encourage Mike through the programme. She provided not only the gastronomy knowledge that is learned from the coursework and practical sessions, but also the unseen skills and insight you get from being coached one-to-one by a professional chef. After passing Level 2 in 2016, Mike was promoted to Head Chef and looked after more than one of Joseph Holt’s kitchens.
With a desire to learn and a taste for career progression, Mike’s apprenticeship journey continued after Joseph Holt asked if he would like to follow up the qualification and do Professional Cookery Level 3. Naturally, he was keen to proceed and grateful for the opportunity. Carolyn and Mike teamed up once again to tackle and pass this apprenticeship.
Achieving this qualification resulted in another promotion in 2018, when Mike secured a Food Development and Training Chef position. This involved developing Joseph Holt menus and he still helps with this aspect but has primarily moved over to looking after Food Standards for the company, leading to a path of further qualifications and career enhancement.
Mike is extremely proud of his achievements and progression within the hospitality industry, all of which have been made possible by apprenticeships. He has the following advice to anyone who is looking to follow this career path:
“Make sure you have a genuine passion for cooking, everything else can follow but enthusiasm is an essential ingredient. Every day is a learning day and never be afraid of asking questions. With the right attitude the career pathways of possibilities are endless. There is no end to learning and progression in a working environment, but there is a beginning and for me it was my apprenticeship.”
Inspiro look forward to hearing about further success for Mike and cannot wait to support and inspire chefs of the future, for both Joseph Holt and other companies.