Apprentice training

[Harry Trafford]

We have notice our quality of apprentice has fallen over the last number of years. This is because as a company we have let them down and not trained them enough. Now we are taking steps to correct this but I'm wondering what other people expect from a freshly qualified engineer. We are solely in the aircon field. Any help appreciated. Look forward to hearing your input.

[Tycho]

Harry,

English isn't my first language, so please allow me to ask:

Are you saying that the quality of apprentices that you are taking on has fallen? (if so, I can relate)

Or, are you saying that the quality of apprentices that you have educated towards becoming full fledged service technicians has fallen, and that apprentices are failing their "certificate of apprenticeship" test?

[Tycho]

The biggest issue I have seen, when it comes to training apprentices, is that "everyone is on the clock!!"
Service technicians are judged by how fast they can clock a service job.
We see it in industry, and my friend who work in commercial says it's even worse.

I have been training responsible for 14 apprentices in my time, they all probably hated me :) because 7 of them have gone on to make a career in competing companies, the last one even went straight from apprentice under me, to Project Manager with a competitor :)

While I was training responsible, an apprentice would never change jobs/projects. if they were assigned a job, they would see it to completion.

This is the death of every apprentice... to be part of the middle of 100 jobs, and something I can still see in most companies... Apprentices are used at cheap labor, and it pisses me off.
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Harry Trafford, I don't know how many service technicians you have in your company.

But if you want the quality of the apprentices that you produce to increase.

I have 24 years of experience, and have had 14 apprentices in those years.

It hasn't always been pretty :/

My advice to you, if you are at service manager level, is that you pair apprentices to a service technician.

that was our biggest issue, apprentices would come in at the beginning when all hands on deck were needed, then when it was sorted out we'd just send them back to the workshop and have them take stock and count our spare parts.

Maybe the guy would say "Nah, I don't need an apprentice for this, I'll fix it in 2 hours alone"

I had a discussion with one of the older guys, he said "but I work faster alone" I said, "I know that, but I don't want you to work faster, I want you to tech people"

he said "I'll teach as best as I can, but I'm not working any slower"
I said "Great, because I have assigned you an apprentice, and he will be the only one driving your car the next month"

[Harry Trafford]

Thanks for the reply.
We are struggling to find decent apprentices to start with and also feel the training they are receiving has fallen well below what I would expect if it was my company. Unfortunately it's not my company, and I'm not a service manager but a senior engineer in the company. I brought the issue up with my boss but I'm unsure what we as a company can do to help. I'm 14years in the trade and have got to where I am with hard work and plenty reading, the apprentices now don't seem driven to excel in the industry and only view it as a job.

[seanf]

If I was going to hire someone as an apprentice or qualified, I think I would give more time to the hiring process to try and find out who they really are. Time should show up if there is a real interest or whatever other qualities your looking for. Just make sure your paying attention and that you give opportunities for the genuine interest/quality to show itself, dont force it out of them.

I guess a place you could look for candidate apprentices is in a highschool technology department, if the tutor does give a cr4p, they will have had plenty of time to have seen who has a real interest. I would be considering other age groups as well, not just teenagers.

Like Tycho said, for training I would be putting the time in and not just rely on a college.