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Apprentice dilemma

lyledunn

I must have received twenty plus cold-call applications from young lads or their parents, all seeking a start in the electrical installation industry. All seem to have secured a place at college this September, but need that precious job placement to see them through their NVQ level 3. Unfortunately, the nature of my business does not lend itself to apprenticeships. 
We often discuss the dilemma during 2391 classes. The feedback I am getting from contractors, especially the smaller outfits, is that it just isn’t worth the pain. Minimum wage, employment rights, insurance issues, health and safety considerations and day release are all cited as contributing to turning down applications from these youngsters. 
The bigger electrical contractors of yesteryear, which often gave employment to hundreds, are now management teams that employ a core cohort of electricians and use the cheapest labour-only contractors or agencies. There is no room for mentorship anymore, it has been squeezed out. Contractors want operatives who can hit the ground running and who can be dispensed with when a contract completes. They need the flexibility to expand and contract with the order book. 
I do believe that contractors understand the consequences of not opening doors to apprentices, it’s just that they are constrained in doing so by so many different hurdles.

I do offer encouragement to the young lads where I can, but to be honest, it feels a bit limp!

Parents
  • 0

    What sort of work is an electrical apprentice expected to do?

    My daughter has asked me to investigate the family tree. A rich resource is censuses. There were certainly plenty of apprentices 100 - 150 years ago and no 'NEETs', not a single one.

    One can make a good profit out of an apprentice. I have had some leadwork done recently. The roofing company charged me half price, i.e. £175/day for the apprentice, whose job was mainly to foot the ladder for the master lead-worker.

  • 0 in reply to Chris Pearson
    Chris Pearson said:
    What sort of work is an electrical apprentice expected to do?

    What I'm finding is that they labouring for the first 6 months, then gradually start doing more electrical work. After a year, most of them are pretty good, and can be left to do most tasks, with inspection of their work.

    What I'm also finding is apprentices, 3rd year, and a few 2nd year, are let out on their own to do work without supervision. I've visited two sites this week with no appropriate supervision on site. The apprentices are generally pretty sensible, but, they really should have some supervision on site, and they definitely need some more training on safe isolation. One yesterday was at a house having a CU change. They'd taken out the DNO fuse, left the fuse out, and the cut-out cabinet door open. There was easy access to the box, and the live terminal on the cut-out was clearly visible. I had words with them.

    Today two were doing an EICR. No 2391, and only a technician grade electrician who had been sent by his Boss. And it seems, no safety awareness. They had taken the CU cover off, and were isolating one circuit at a time while testing, and in between, the cover was left off, with the homeowner present. They are risk averse. 

    We have to bring up 'behaviours', and British Values (google it) during our visit. British Values includes 'Rule of Law', so they all got a lecture on how the H&S aW act, and Elec. Regs affect their everyday work, how it protects them, and how it can lead to their prosecution for doing stupid things, like leaving live terminals open to be touched by anyone. I really hope it sunk in, but I'm not sure it has. Anyway, they've all got to do a safe isolation in front of me now.

  • 0 in reply to alanblaby
    alanblaby said:
    And it seems, no safety awareness.
    alanblaby said:
    They are risk averse

    Or unaware of risk?

    Two things make me very concerned: working with live electrics, and working at height.

    I have nearly finished transferring my circuits at home from the old to new DB. Only the lighting circuits remain. Mrs P wanted to know why I was going all round the house and turning the lights on in the middle of the day. The reason is that there are 5 circuits and I don't want to do dead tests on a live circuit, so I needed to identify which circuits supplied what. And yes, I could isolate the whole installation in order to be perfectly sure.

    Which brings me to question as to why domestic installations are exempt from the requirement to provide diagrams or at least a schedule - 514.9.1.

    (I appreciate that documents may be lost when a property is sold.)

  • 0 in reply to Chris Pearson

    Personally, I think domestics could do with documentation showing where all services are installed.

    For example, I only know there is a gas pipe buried somewhere in the wall of my living room after I went into the loft to insulate the heating / water pipes and redo the roof insulation and found a gas pipe running into the plaster at high-level.

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  • 0 in reply to Chris Pearson

    Personally, I think domestics could do with documentation showing where all services are installed.

    For example, I only know there is a gas pipe buried somewhere in the wall of my living room after I went into the loft to insulate the heating / water pipes and redo the roof insulation and found a gas pipe running into the plaster at high-level.

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