Form3’s Fr3shers Community

At Form3, we have built a dedicated community for our entry level hires – we call ourselves Fr3shers! We are currently a team of apprentices across different areas of the business; you can find us in the PeopleTeam, IT, Finance, Legal, and Product. Last summer, we were also lucky enough to welcome some interns to the team.

Fr3shers was inspired by the idea of ‘freshers’ culture in British universities: the welcome week for first-year university students. Although our team at Form3 do not have the traditional pros of ‘freshers’ events at the start of the year or semester, we created ‘Fr3shers’ to encourage the community behind starting a new journey and learning together. Fr3shers has given Form3 entry level recruits the chance to build relationships with team members who are at a similar point in their studies and career. Essentially, we aim to help each other learn and grow whilst having fun!

As apprentices, we are eager to constantly expand our skills and business acumen, to help us become the most knowledgeable and professional individuals we can be. In an attempt to develop our understanding of Form3, including our teams and ways of working, we introduced our monthly virtual Fr3shers sessions. They involve various hosts across the company, joining us once a month, to provide either training or an insight into their role, their team, any ongoing projects and to share other knowledge or expertise they may feel is relevant to us.  

In a remote culture, sessions like these are also useful to make room for us to broaden our interpersonal and communication skills. Each month, a different apprentice is assigned a session to help co-ordinate it, which enables us to connect with other team members who we may not usually cross paths with, whilst encouraging us to adapt our style to who it is we are communicating with. These sessions are also a fantastic opportunity to bring the Fr3shers team together. Even if it is virtual, it’s great to engage and see everybody on Zoom. We are always looking for hosts to run one of our monthly virtual sessions! 

Throughout the year we stay connected using our Slack channel - #Fr3shers. This channel is often used as a space for quick catchups or check ins with each other, to share relevant information about initiatives going on at Form3 or any recommendations for courses, music, apps, studying techniques and more! Given that we are situated across different business lines, it can sometimes be difficult engage with each other. Our Slack channel is a safe space for conversations and achievements to be shared amongst the Fr3shers team! Our favourite part is celebrating each other; whether it is a ‘happy birthday’ or ‘congratulations’ message, we want to celebrate our achievements and spread good vibes! 

Although we operate in a remote first environment, Fr3shers meet-ups are our favourite! We love getting together in person throughout the year, engaging in workshops, training, and other interesting talks with several colleagues across the Form3 family. We recently attended a Fr3shers offsite at the London office, where we were lucky enough to hear about a number of topics, including: An Overview of Business Financing, Introduction to Ethical Hacking, An Overview of New Markets, An Overview of Business Scaling and more!  

An apprenticeship involves both working and studying. As apprentices, we can allocate 20% of our working week towards studying for our apprenticeship; however, Form3’s wonderful L&D initiatives allow us to upskill even further.  

Everyone has different ambitions or areas with room for growth and the Learning & Development Allowance can be used for us to attend seminars, complete further qualifications, purchase educational subscriptions and more. This gives us the flexibility to invest in our own personal development and provides the opportunity for us to grow in a way that best suits our individual needs, putting us on the right track to develop our career.  

On top of this, we are also offered 6 Learning Days per year that may be used to complete certifications, attend seminars, finish additional apprenticeship work and more!