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Here at UKW we believe that its a matter of time before the government brings in legislation to force this industry to get itself qualified. There is in place an NVQ for the appliance engineer although there has been no take up of it, generally.
As the refrigeration industry it is now being regulated with the minimum qualification being Safe Handling (C&G 2078), there’s a 6 month grace period where all engineers have to get qualified or QUIT. We think this will happen to us too, we might not get the 6 month grace period, for lots of reasons. One being, the whole assessor, verifier situation is unclear. If these guys don’t exist in numbers then there just won’t be enough time for all of us to get “qualified”, even in 6 months.What can we do?
UKW in association with Create (http://www.createuk.com) is embarking on a pilot scheme to fully document the route to an NVQ. We will produce a full report for all UKW members to follow the steps towards qualification. We will also detail along the way exactly how much it will cost and when the costs occur. We are planning to roll this out at our September meeting and will be presenting this as a topic during the meeting.
In order to satisfy demand we need a couple of things to happen.
a) We need all Assessors with relevent experience within the whitegoods sector and holding D32/33 or A1 award who want to be part of our nationwide network, to contact George Downes (gdownes@ukwhitegoods.co.uk) who is one of our Tech Trainers and also an Assessor himself.
b) We also need all Verifiers with whitegoods experience and holding D34 or V1 award to contact us, through George again if you please. (gdownes@ukwhitegoods.co.uk)
c) We also would like to hear from you if you would like to become an assessor, we can help you along the qualifying route.
d) Finally we need to hear from those of you who want more info on this whole NVQ thing. We think our pilot will take 4 months to complete which is roughly the end of July, we will then be able to roll this out and get interested parties started on the pathway.We do have some ideas as to getting help with funding and these we will be investigating, over the next 4 months.
Those of you that have already expressed an interest to George regarding NVQ, about 30 of you, need not reaffirm your intent, unless you want to.
Fire away with any questions and we will try to answer. Ultrazapp (Andy Reade) is our contact within Create and I’m sure he will assist in answering any questions you have.
Kevin
PP kwatt, del and dave conwayRe: NVQ for the Domestic Appliance industry.
I understand that NVQ can be gained simply by undergoing assessment without the time and expense of having to invest in a course of training.
Is this correct? I hope it is because I think a lot of us would need a subsidy from the government if they were going to insist on us doing a course. (There again could be fun actually, few weeks/months holiday paid for by the state while mucking around with fellow miscreants in some local college). There’d be a lot more machines getting scrapped because there’d be no-one available to fix them though. Shame really.
Mike.Re: NVQ for the Domestic Appliance industry.
Your understanding is wrong……totally.
1st you will need to register with a training provider. Not as easy as it sounds at the present time.
Then you will have to build a portfolio of evidence to prove you know your stuff. Yes, you will need assessing during this evidence gathering, possibly more than once. Where you are weak, you can get help to strenghen the topics, to ensure you get to the verification stage. If all the pieces fit the jigsaw you are awarded the Level 2 NVQ.
Just because we are all existing engineers doesn’t make this a walk in the park, don’t underestimate the qualification.As there is a shortage of assessors and verifiers you’ll pay heavily to get either to look over you, this whole proceedure could work out at £2,000 per engineer trained.
Assessors and verifiers need paying for those services they offer and the awarding body don’t do it for free either.Our pilot scheme is to unravel the pathways and the costs, so all can make a judgement based on fact, to train or ignore and wait untill its too late.
Have a look at your local LSC(Google it) they control the funding from the government and I’d advise you all to start asking now for a grant toward the expected costs. Try using their search engine to find a training provider (domestic appliance servicing) in your area, you won’t find one, thats the size of the problem.Hope that helps you understand a little more
Kevin
Re: NVQ for the Domestic Appliance industry.
A company called Dixon training (www. dixontraining.co.uk) seem to do a course for Dom. App. engineers – they say they train engineers for some of the manufacturers. I don’t know if they train to NVQ 2 or not. I would like to get this Qualification ASAP to avoid the carnage experienced by electricians trying to get last minute training for Part P.
Any feedback on Dixon? Could they help us?
No-one currently running an NVQ (or anything else for that matter) down here in Dorset. Nearest one was Eastleigh College – but it seems they have dropped it due to insufficient applicants- hhmm! 🙄
Hoping this helps!Re: NVQ for the Domestic Appliance industry.
Graham Dixon is a member of this site and very supportive of what we are doing. He does not offer the NVQ level 2 at this time, it’s more involved than a 2 week course. However Graham is helping me with the detail of this initiative and UKW thank him for that.
Actually one of Grahams ideas is to re write the NVQ removing all the “electronic” bits and having our own “whitegoods” only NVQ. Then taking it to the City and Guilds for national approval. Good idea, anyone got time? 😉
oh, any one can nick that idea if they want to, we all win if you do!
Kevin
Re: NVQ for the Domestic Appliance industry.
kheath wrote:oh, any one can nick that idea if they want to, we all win if you do!
Not again! 😕
Right, it’s supposed to be a form of flattery, but really it grates a bit after the first few times.
But then, if if there’s no other certification that’s industry accepted and we have to devise our own, then so be it. And, let’s face it, who better to devise the standards than those that are actually working within the industry and doing the job day to day? What’s more acceptable, a government or (heaven forbid, we saw what they did with CORGI) HSE instigated certification method or one from within the industry?
It’s not a question of “if”, it’s a question of “when” and “what”.
K.
Re: NVQ for the Domestic Appliance industry.
It’s beginning to sound more and more like one of these days I’ll either have to invest in a shirt and tie or go underground or go out and get a proper job. Ah well it’s been fun being a repairman but I’m not going to try and play Canute. When this regulation business comes in I think I might be inclined to just knock it on the head and look for a new niche.
Mike.Re: NVQ for the Domestic Appliance industry.
kheath wrote:Your understanding is wrong……totally.
Have a look at your local LSC(Google it)
KevinI did but it was all a bit complicated and boring and didn’t seem very relevant.
So instead I Googled NVQ.
1st result: http://www.qca.org.uk/14-19/qualifications/index_nvqs.htm
Clicked on “How are NVQ’s achieved?”
Sounds a bit more user friendly.
Mike.Re: NVQ for the Domestic Appliance industry.
I’m trying to edit that link to get it to go to the right page and it’s not proving easy. It’s computer training I need.
Mike.
PS Only way to get there is Google NVQ and take 1st result.
PPS No, I’ve done it! Just needed the htm on the end. Isn’t learning fun!Re: NVQ for the Domestic Appliance industry.
The Standards, or what you have to do, for the current NVQ can be found in the scheme handbook, download from this C&G link in pdf format. This is also available from EAL (Emta awards Ltd)
Good Luck it’s a heavy!
Re: NVQ for the Domestic Appliance industry.
I Remember the words of one of my favorite mentors.
“Yoda”
Methinks learning a lot in this area needed is.
Or in Earth language.
Gentlemen “Wake Up and Smell the Coffeee”
If this qualification grew on trees “The Monkeys Would Have It already”
If you want it you will need to Register an interest via this website, strictly first come first served.
Please remember we are not here to fight you just to support the work you do and the industry. ❓ 😀
Re: NVQ for the Domestic Appliance industry.
Had a quick look at document. Amazing how 154 pages are needed to describe what we do everyday in our work. (And on top of all that we have to cope with confined spaces, wet, slippery floors, choking dust and dirt, etc.). Makes me realise what heroes we really are.
I can see the assessment and (re-)training are going to be a bit dull though. Not looking forward to spending my time and/or money on that.
Nah, can think of better ways to direct my career. 😉
Mike.Re: NVQ for the Domestic Appliance industry.
Training existing engineers to Level 2 NVQ
What happens if legislation is foisted upon this industry?UK Whitegoods believes that within the next couple of years we will see legislation brought into our industry to force present day businesses to get qualified. The UK is pretty much down the league table of Europe when it comes to the Skill Level of its general workforce. There is loads of Government/European funding for up-skilling of the workforce but none of it applies to our industry.
Whilst we have a NVQ award, there’s no where to run it from, the government funding would apply only to a Training Provider, not individual businesses. There is no demand for the NVQ so therefore there are no business set up to do the training, if the Government legislate to force the skill level thousands will be caught out and many could lose their livelihood and their businesses.
As an example we only have to look at the effect “Corgi” has had on our industry. We fully support the aims of Corgi in making the gas industry safe and ensuring that the work force has minimum standards of competence. However, the way it has been administered has decimated the Gas repairers in the Whitegoods sector, quite simply because of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The nut, for us, was we repair Gas Ovens (Domestic) and Gas Hobs (Domestic), the sledgehammer, for us, was we have to qualify on all aspects of Gas Boilers and controls with venting and flueing, when in everyday working life we never work on them, period. On top of that the costs to train an existing engineer to the minimum qualifications are circa £4,000 per head, it’s impossible to train a new operative as its economic suicide to try to fund the training. So, in order to legislate and make safe the gas industry, no-one considered the effect on a small percentage of the workforce who carried out minor repairs to domestic cooking appliances. It’s not possible now to get nationwide repair coverage on Domestic Cooking Appliances within the Independent Whitegoods sector, the repairers simply dropped Corgi from their portfolio, a huge loss of skills in every corner of the UK.In conclusion, we are in a similar position to the un-regulated gas industry of 20 years ago. We have no Trade Association to speak of, they are there but do little, representing only approximately 2.5{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of the total independent businesses and therefore we have no voice and are totally in the dark as to what’s around the corner. If the government appoint an “electrical equivalent to Corgi” what’s to stop the mistakes of the past being repeated? Who will look after the interests of the Independent Repairers? The Manufacturers, Work Providers and or the Insurance Companies? Who will untangle the chicken and egg scenario of Supply and Demand for the training requirements? Indeed, who amongst us can afford it?
Costs(ouch).
UKW estimates the cost of an existing engineer to achieve NVQ Level 2 will be £2,000 cash plus the downtime involved in training/being assessed and verified. This is going to end up at £4,000 per engineer which quite simply we don’t have to invest into ourselves. I suppose this cost can be shaved slightly, no doubt the manufacturers can get lower costs because of the volume required as well as doing things in house, with their own training staff, we are not so lucky.
Whilst an answer is to raise our prices there are some prices we can’t raise.
Where we are contracted to support a Manufacturer, Insurance Company or Work Provider we are tied into the rate applicable to the contract. One of the problems is that this type of work was always “low” paid. The success of this type of work requires a massive support from the contract to ensure 1st time fix rate to turn a profit. If you consider a manufacturer will run at a cost per job rate in excess of £40.00 per call, it automatically suggests they won’t pay higher than the amount they could operate at. All well and good, but for many the pay rate is not at £40.00, far from it, with the difference being pocketed as a saving on Service, not reinvested back into the network.
A long term solution is that the job rate has to rise in accordance with the training costs required to carry out the repair. This is exactly what doesn’t happen for gas repairs now, yes we get a small premium but its low volume high 2nd visit stuff that means the cost of training is never recovered. In order for the independents to pay for their own training a minimum job rate for an electrical repair is going to have to rise to £50.00, pretty soon in the future of this industry.How do we attract the younger generation into this industry?
If we are to find engineers in the future and we wish to attract from outside of our industry just where do we start?
How about, offering a good salary.
When I was a kid, there was no requirement for the latest gadgets and gizmo’s, I had no need of an ipod in the non existent car with woofers and tweeters blasting. But now there is. Young people today haven’t a clue what we had to do to get something. They are bombarded with society advertising, and want everything before they’re 21. It’s the modern way and unless we can keep up with the pace of modern living, we will fail. We therefore have to address the salary of our workforce, it’s too low to attract new blood and our present ageing workforce is too old to jump ship on the devil they know. I hope you can see the disaster scenario that’s building. So what’s a decent wage, I think it should be circa £28,000 for an experienced engineer, with 5 weeks holiday and pension provision, £30,000 for an engineer who does gas or refrigeration system with a London weighting on top of that. And before you dismiss the figures, have a good long, hard think about it.
In reality the engineers’ job is quite unique. There’s the freedom of being out there on your own, the conflict of machine verses the torx driver, the satisfaction of solving problems. Oh, and there’s also the grime, slime and creatures you meet in kitchens throughout the land, lovely. But, having been an engineer it’s definitely a great job, and we need to advertise it correctly to attract the younger generation into the industry.What we need now is for those who sell the appliances to wake up, adjust the retail prices getting rid of the lower value product altogether, to enable this industry to charge the consumer for the cost of training and home service.
Let’s face it, if we all refused to repair appliances that retailed under £250.00….who the hell would do it?
What sort of Service level do you want for £30.00 a call, surely not one from a business who spends thousands training its engineers?Interesting scenario that one.
KevinRe: NVQ for the Domestic Appliance industry.
Personally i think there is a certain amount of over reaction going on here.
Any legislation will come from the odp and the hse, two departments which are a literal law unto themselves, self regulation and training etc is not something those depts will actually take any notice of. As has been pointed out, CORGI.
Having said that you cannot draw a comaprison between gas appliances and electrical appliances (whitegoods). Gas appliances are static objects, they stay where they are installed but in their operation to be safe alot of external factors have to be considered eg ventialtion etc etc. A washing machine is not dependent on outside variables to work correctly, yes it has to be safe within its self and be earthed etc, but its also an object that is moved, to a new home maybe or the dump when the owner decides to ditch it, its unplugged and thats the end of it. So surely there is a case to say that service engineers in the future will have to be qualified to a level of competance on electrical safety? because thats what the hse is all about and of course there will be a registration fee that goes without sayin ! There is already a recognised electrical competance scheme in place which is a fraction of the £2000 figure being bounded about.Just another angle to look from maybe before we all go having heart attacks over what may or may not be ulitmately required.
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