Morgan Anderson, a trainee in Kingdom Housing Association’s human resources department, has been selected as the Chartered Institute of Housing in Scotland’s Apprentice of the Year for 2017.

Though Morgan only recently completed the first year of her three-year training programme at the Glenrothes headquarters of the affordable housing provider, she is already making a valuable contribution to the work of Kingdom’s HR team and has achieved Associate Membership of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD).

Morgan, 23, said: “Before I joined Kingdom, I was a supervisor in a local supermarket and was keen to have a career in HR but was struggling to find a way into the profession. The Kingdom Trainee Programme was a great opportunity for me and everyone here has been really supportive to me. I’ve gained lots of great experiences in work, completed the CIPD Intermediate Certificate in Human Resource Management and have recently started studying towards the CIPD Level 7 Diploma in HR Management.”

Andrew Latto, Kingdom’s head of HR, added: “I’m so proud of Morgan. We appointed her in the hope that, by the end of her three year traineeship, she would have the knowledge, experience and qualifications to apply for entry-level HR practitioner roles either with Kingdom or another employer. Morgan has achieved all that after just one year, massively exceeding my expectations. I can’t wait to see what she can achieve after another two years.”

Bill Banks, Kingdom Group chief executive, also congratulated Morgan.

He said: “We created the Kingdom Trainee Programme as part of our mission to provide More Than A Home because we know that, for a variety of reasons, young people sometime struggle to find a pathway into the career of their choice. All of our trainees are doing really well and it’s very rewarding to see one of them getting some very well-deserved recognition for her hard work and dedication.”