Modern Apprenticeships for the whitegoods industry

Just a quick note to say that this is a great opportunity for anyone even remotely interested to get your views back to people that CAN make a difference and those views will be carried back to government bodies.

It would appear that there’s more then just me that has had problems getting and training new staff for various reasons so why not pop along and air your views. If nothing else it’ll get it off your chest and who knows, someone might even do something about it. One thing’s for sure, if we don’t tell the right people what we need we’ve no chance of getting it.

So, if you want to attend just PM or mail Kevin and he will add you to the list of names attending and it’s an impressive list so far which encompasses many, many companies in the industry.

K.

Re: Modern Apprenticeships for the whitegoods industry

Thanks Andy, great post and what I’ve been trying to stir for the past couple of days. 😉

APG wrote:BUTHow can we attract more people to the industry?

Wow, where do I start?

For a start it needs re-branded. Yes, I know that sounds so damned corporate it’s unreal, but it’s sadly the truth. The term “washing machine engineer” is just so dull and staid it’s unreal and there’s so much more to it than that really, as well we know.

I’ve been trying to get van stickers (no it is relevant) for ISE made. I wanted to have the ISE logo there but what I didn’t want was the old “authorised agent”, I mean really, what does that tell anyone? Do they even believe it or know what it means if they do? Probably not. And even if they don’t people just think, “oh, authorised service, that’ll be expensive then”.

Don’t believe me? What do you think about “authorised” car franchise service?

This stuff is basic marketing 101. If some monkeys in suits had put as much thought and effort into aftersales as they had selling the things in the first place life would be a lot easier, but they didn’t.

So, we’re not engineers. Sorry, but that’s a fact as engineers generally have more ualifications than we do, but since public perception puts us on that pedastal we should use it as, truth be told, we’re really technicians, but we can use the public’s perception to our advantage should we choose to. Many of us do anyway, especially when it comes to sales.

What many of us have to realise is that we have massive consumer trust as well as access to end-user. We are the ambassador for any company that we call on behalf of, including our own where the call is a chargeable call. What we have to do is learn how to use those levers to our advantage.

And that is one of the most attractive things about the industry, educating customers. It is extremely rewarding.

Which leads to the diversity of customer, every day is a different set of problems, different customers and different places. Far better than sitting in a cubicle in a call centre if you ask me.

APG wrote:How can we make this industry more attractive?

See above.

APG wrote:How much money can we afford to pay a trainee or apprentis?

That’s really a question for each individual business to answer, but from my perspective as I’ve said, whilst I’m quite prepared to fund as much as I can myself, I simply cannot afford to fund it all. I wish the situation where different but it is not.

That does not mean that I’ve given up, far from it.

APG wrote:What sort/type of candidate are we looking for?

I think that we have to be looking at anyone that has the drive and nonce TBH, it’s easy to spot.

APG wrote:Just because a person is physically fit or academically brilliant will they be right for the job/training in your company?

Correct. Academic and common sense rarely slot together IME and when they do the last thing that a person that is that capable will want to do is a manual job as that was not the reason that they entered acedemia or the further education system. There are obviously some exceptions to the rule, but very few IME.

K.

Re: Modern Apprenticeships for the whitegoods industry

This is quite sad in some ways, I’m sat here after 3:00am on a Sunday morning as it is now watching the snow fall and thinking about this stuff.

Of course I’ve spoken to Kevin, Sean, John and a couple of others that attended the meeting the other day and the general concensus is… well I’ll let you read to the end of the report by Kevin first eh.

The presentations can be downloaded HERE that accompany this report.

Kevin’s Report wrote:A report from the Modern Apprentice meeting held at CDSL on the 9th March

In Attendance
EESTC, EEF, CDSL, Whirlpool, DeLonghi, Servevast/Smeg Service, GDHA, Dasa, Dixon Training, Windy Ridge Training, JTM Contracts, Huby Domestic, Stellison, Concept Services, Haworth Appliances, Deltec, MDM Appliances, Create and UK Whitegoods.

The meeting was started by an introduction from UK Whitegoods
(Available in the Downlaods section)

Followed by a presentation by the EEF

Mr Peter Winebloom of the Engineers Employment Federation gave an hour long introduction on his organisation and the framework requirements for a Modern Apprenticeship.

Whilst the subject is extremely complicated there is no doubt as to the methodology required to achieve the Apprenticeship or the route to draw Government funding. However what was apparent from the presentation is the fact that a Modern Apprentice does not come with enough funding from the Government to cover the training costs.

The Discussion points at the end are of utmost importance to all of us, as it concludes that substantial funding is required. Remember that we need to insure a young apprentice to drive a vehicle, to be old enough to command respect from a customer whilst representing the repairer involved. Therefore for an apprentice to fit the bill we are looking at less funding from the government, increasing the funding to be found from the Repairer.

On top of this funding is also the funding of board and lodgings whilst the apprentice does Day/ Block release. This raises the stakes considerably.

In our (UKW) opinion this whole initiative fails at this point. Why?

Well, the majority of the independents in the UK are very small businesses that are just 1 man. Our perception is that he is pretty successful in putting food on the table; he’s approaching the time of life when he’s thinking of retirement, not on spending thousands of pounds trying to make sure his customers are serviced by an apprentice when he does retire. Remove these businesses from the equation and what you have left is Multi engineer businesses that more than likely have Manufacturer or Work Provider ties.

So these are the real targets of this initiative, we should also include the Manufacturer engineers at this point. We think that the costs involved are beyond the economic reach of even the Multi engineer businesses, leaving the Manufacturer engineers. As we are primarily interested in the independents lets put them to one side for the moment.

The problem remains; how do the likes of any manufacturer or work provider who uses Independents get involved with such enormous training costs?

Our solution is a simple one; that is to stimulate everyone’s thoughts in the right direction by thinking differently.

For sure opinions in the room were divided and several thought the idea doomed to failure, completely missing the point. This industry is about to revalue all prices to include the WEEE directive implications on recycling, insurance costs will also have to be devalued, a perfect time to add the cost of training onto the customer.

Returning to the manufacturer engineers, the employers will seriously have to dig deep to invest into their futures by going down this route. If they do they can do it without us, employing apprentices on their own and good luck to them. For they are the independents of the future when they gain enough experience to make the leap into our world, just as many of us did in our time.

In conclusion we think;

The EEF can deliver the framework for a Modern Apprenticeship but we as an industry are a country mile away from being able to make use of it. If we can unite as an industry and solve the funding issues, at the same time solving the “them and us” mentality that separates Manufacturers and Independents, allowing all who want to, to take part in drawing funding from the industry and the Government to employ an apprentice. Then and only then have we a chance.

So, where do we go from here then?

It was pointed out by someone that the manufacturers etc. would far rather use unskilled and (officially) untrained engineers to save money rather than investing into their own agents. A very fair point especially since many won’t even provide training (or much information) on the appliances that they expect us to repair.

Then they all wonder why service levels are inconsistant and sometimes not to brilliant. Well it’s not exactly rocket science to work that one out is it?

It’s as plain as plain can be that there is a crisis in this industry, not in a few years, but now. I have said from the start of 2004 that we had roughly five years before a national network could reach the point where it was unsustainable, we have already passed that point on certain products, noteably gas products and as we’re very likely to shortly find out, refrigeration as well.

I hate to say I was right and can’t really say that just yet, but the odds look to be in my favour by a considerable margin.

But a lot of people that do have the power to help and do something about it are simply doing the best impression of an ostrich that a human can do. I’ve touched on that the other day in the epic post I did in here in the thread “Fixed Rates”. Basically, if we’re undervalued and don’t make a profit we’ll vanish, it really is that simple.

And I know that quite a few will simply think that we’ll be replaced by another company and that’ll be that, but I have some bad news for a lot of manufacturers, WP’s and insurers… the pickings are getting slimmer and slimmer as the clock ticks. Very soon you won’t have pickings and you may find yourself held to ransom as you are in many a rural area where you pay higher rates than you do in London. Yes, I know this for a fact that it happens.

Which proves to me that the money can be found when backs are to the wall and that many of us are probably being held to an artifically low service rate. Nice, honourable and open way to do business eh?

I’m not going to name names. I don’t have to and a lot of the information I have was given in confidence and that’s something I won’t break, even if I do personally disagree with the policy.

But are we done here. No, we’re not.

We don’t like to be beat by the odd hurdle put in our way, you may have noticed that about us.

K.