Amazon Career Choice training and development is making dreams come true for Yorkshire workers
For Yolanda Theresa Mills it’s turned a long-held dream into reality.
Once a hospitality worker, she is now proudly forging a new path as an engineer, thanks to the training and qualifications she gained through the scheme.
The programme, which has been running at Amazon for the past decade in the UK, pre-pays up to 95% of tuition fees for nationally recognised courses in high-demand fields, up to £8,000 over four years, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon.
Courses available include accountancy, HGV driving and software development, and are designed to help employees build careers at Amazon or elsewhere. It means eligible employees are given the opportunity to gain the skills and qualifications needed to follow their career aspirations.
Yolanda, who works at the Amazon fulfilment centre in Wakefield, used Amazon’s Career Choice programme to help secure her role as an engineer and has shared her story to encourage others to take their career to the next level.
Before joining Amazon, she worked in tourism and hotel management.
In 2005, she accidentally applied to work on a cruise ship by filling in the wrong job application form and returned to land 15 years later after a rich – but unexpected – career!
Yolanda joined Amazon four years ago seeking a better work/life balance and to be close to her family – but also wanted to push herself to train in a new career.
Initially on the inventory control and quality assurance team, at the company’s Dartford fulfilment centre, she has used Amazon’s internal development opportunities to transfer to a role on the Reliability Maintenance Engineering (RME) team in Wakefield, where her family lives.
“It’s okay to dream new dreams,” said Yolanda.
“My dream of working in hospitality ended, and when I joined Amazon, I was ready for something new. At Amazon, I knew I wouldn’t be boxed in to one set career path, so it seemed like the perfect place to start dreaming again.”
Many of skills Yolanda learned during her time at sea transferred to her work at Amazon, particularly in terms of health and safety.
She said: “The culture of safety I learned to implement on cruise ships through my job came with me to Amazon, and it’s an area of work I’m still really interested in. Alongside that, Amazon in Wakefield rolled out a new programme that created positions on the engineering team for people without engineering qualifications. The idea was that hands-on experience would encourage people to pursue new development opportunities.
“It worked for me, as I decided to do an engineering course through Amazon Career Choice. I’m started a 15-month Engineering Operative apprenticeship tat the end of March, which allows me to gain even higher engineering qualifications and open the door for me to apply for a mechatronics engineering apprenticeship. I never would’ve thought I’d end up in this position!”
Yolanda has also completed a Data Analyst course through Amazon Career Choice.
What advice does Yolanda have for anyone hoping to boost their careers with lifelong learning?
“Your age, your circumstances or where you’re from don’t matter if you want to succeed, particularly at Amazon. If you want to do something, go for it. Talk to colleagues who inspire you and find out about their career paths and try to get help from people however you can.
“To women who are thinking about moving into engineering: remember there’s nothing stopping you. You can be a practical engineer or a programming engineer. Don’t put yourself in a box – follow your dreams.”
Alongside Amazon Career Choice, Amazon also provides opportunities to improve existing skills or learn new ones through internal career progression opportunities such as apprenticeships, transferring to a different department and promotion to a managerial role.
Yolanda is one of over 1,000 people in Yorkshire who have completed Amazon’s employability skills training programme since 2010. Throughout the region, Amazon has also created more than 7,000 full and part-time jobs and over 200 apprenticeship roles.
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