As one of Manchester's largest used car supermarkets, HPL Motors is well known for providing a quality range of second-hand cars with over 400 to choose from across their showroom floors each day. For those that didn't know, HPL stands for "Honesty Produces Loyalty" a motto the business prides itself on, with 50% of its business coming from returning customers.

The motor vehicle industry is well-known for providing career routes through an apprenticeship and HPL Motors is an example of this, as apprentices are part of the workforce across the business service areas and behind the scenes in the motor vehicle repair centres. 

Its clear to see that loyalty isn't just a focus with customers; loyalty is at the heart of the workforce, as the organisation is committed to developing its people and apprenticeships are a driving tool to do so. 

Workshop Controller Paul Davenport supporting apprentices Renato and Andzselo

Nurturing talent

Service Manager Sue Lees has worked with Mantra Learning for over 25 years and has seen many apprentices develop under her guidance and progress on to prosperous careers and wants to continue to provide that pathway, as its not only a benefit to the individual but to the business as well. Sue stated, "I've found the apprenticeship programs to be a massive benefit to the business. We want to bring our staff through the business and develop them, you get a commitment to the learning and a sense of loyalty because you've invested in them. When recruiting it can be difficult to get the right candidates, but developing people from the ground upwards works for us."

Willingness to learn

HPL Motors deal with a wide range of car brands from Ford, Hyundai, Range Rover, and BMW; so staff get an opportunity to develop skills and knowledge on how each of these brands is manufactured. For the Apprentice Technicians, this is valuable and Workshop Controller Paul Davenport stated, "we want apprentices to have an experience of working across every type of car possible. We challenge them and work closely with Mantra so that we're helping them to achieve the qualifications and gain the right experiences. As a technician, they'll work on engines, gearboxes, diagnostics and we support them to learn and use the Autologic System, so an apprentice must have the willingness to learn."

Adding value

Organisations across many sectors have been looking into the direction of apprenticeships for several years now to resolve their skills gaps and its fair to say that the automotive sector is at the forefront of demonstrating how this works, a piece of research by The IMI found that homegrown apprentice-trained technicians outperformed market recruited technicians and an apprentice will typically become profitable between months 12 and 18 months.

Where could an apprentice add value to your business?

To find out how our apprenticeship opportunities can support your business, complete the following enquiry form and a member of our team will contact you.