Unexpected Blog Post on Apprenticeships

[Jelly]

It's not often you start reading a blog on a company website and can be bothered to scroll down...

But this blog from the MD of Cleansing Services Group (a company who operate a curious mix of services as diverse as septic tank emptying, hazardous waste treatment and photographic services), was really very interesting in it's analysis and clearly written by someone who both knows and cares about the subject.

 

[Droogs]

interesting

 

[Glitch]

Makes a lot of sense.
Presumably written or influenced by a baby boomer who knows not everything has changed for the better.

 

[HappyHacker]

A few years before Mike started at Shotton I was taken around on a visit by the Metalwork teacher from school who took a few of us around a number of businesses to see what they were like and what apprenticeships were available. It was fascinating to see the blast furnace tapped and molten steel running along a ditch in the floor. Our black blazers were sparkly for ages afterwards due to the small shiny bits of slag that had stuck to them. Most of the apprenticeships I looked at did day release to the tech college for ONC and HNC qualifications.

More recently a friends son was trying to get an apprenticeship and he was offered one with an international company. At the interview he asked about the qualifications he would get during the apprenticeship and they told him they don't do qualifications, we train apprentices to do the job that needs doing. He was offered an engineering apprenticeship with a different company that ensure they get appropriate qualifications while training. He accepted that one and is really enjoying it.

I think we lost a lot when academic qualifications became more important than experience coupled with the downgrading of so many degree courses. One of my daughters gave up on her degree course after two years because it was boring and she did not feel the work being done warranted a degree. She started a different course with a different university and said she learnt more in the first month than in two years at first "university" due to the quality of the lecturers and tuition.

 

[Jelly]

Makes a lot of sense.
Presumably written or influenced by a baby boomer who knows not everything has changed for the better.

I got the impression that it was written by the MD himself, or by a professional copywriter from CSG's marketing team, with detailed input from the MD himself on exactly what it should say...

Because it's too blunt about their perception of the impact of historical political decisions to not have come directly from someone senior in the company, organisations just don't express a public opinion on that kind of thing normally.

 

[deema]

I used to run a company in Deeside, and well, I don’t recognise the superlatives offered up for Shotton Steel works. When I first arrived at the company it’s workforce which had a significant number of these formlly employed at Shotton were extremely militant, difficult and down right confrontation. The first word was always no, now whats the question. Literacy levels in the area were appalling. We used to test everyone applying for any job and most failed to demonstrate the minimum academic level required of an 11 year old. Talking to other employers in the area we were not alone in our findings. The general view had been ‘why bother with school I will work at the steel plant with my dad.’
After a lot of hard work, working with the local college for adult education we ended up with one of the best workforce’s I have had the pleasure of working with. Hard working, aspirational, and virtually all internal promotions right up to Senior Manager / Director level being filled by people who had started from the shop floor. One Senior Manager had started as the tea boy. We paid for quality, certified nationally recognised qualifications training right up to Masteers Degrees. We had numerous people from the shop floor with degrees by the end.

 

[AES]

Thanks for posting that Jelly. An interesting read and a refreshing viewpoint form the upper management of quite a large company it seems (sorry, I'd not heard of CSG before).

I must say that my own apprenticeship experience (started 1961) quite closely resembles the "atmosphere" and "additional values" described in the link, even though my own apprenticeship was "only" in the RAF - we did indeed learn more than "how to fix broken 'planes", and being military there was not only "sport, marching and saluting"(!!) but also the (at the time indefinable) feeling that IF one wanted to, one could indeed end up as high in the hierarchy as one wished.

Pleased to see that at least with this company CSG, the basic principles of apprenticeships are not dead. And Oh yeah, for those that wished for it, there was plenty of opportunity for us to undertake extra study for "external" qualifications such as HNC.

 

[Glitch]

Sounds ideal Deema.
A stimulating environment, opportunity, respect, recognition, qualifications, great leadership.

 

[Jelly]

I used to run a company in Deeside, and well, I don’t recognise the superlatives offered up for Shotton Steel works. When I first arrived at the company it’s workforce which had a significant number of these formlly employed at Shotton were extremely militant, difficult and down right confrontation. The first word was always no, now whats the question. Literacy levels in the area were appalling. We used to test everyone applying for any job and most failed to demonstrate the minimum academic level required of an 11 year old. Talking to other employers in the area we were not alone in our finding. The general view had been ‘why bother with school I will work at the steel plant with my dad.’

I Got the impression that part of what he was saying was that being exposed to:

"a wide variety of types of people: there were hard workers, slow workers, charmers, sulkers, academics and BS merchants. Without realising it, you were gaining the mental tools to be able to deal with all these different types, to work with them or to resolve a problem.”​

Equipped him to go on an become a better manager and business leader when he moved on from British Steel; to work for Deeside Titanium and subsequent employers... I suspect that being mentally prepared for the kind of workforce you describe was part of that.

Certainly I recall in my first job after uni having to lead a shift of operators and having a huge advantage over my opposite (also a fresh graduate) on the other shift, because I'd spent several years prior/during uni working as an operator (in a different industry); allowing me to naturally grasp what was going on and gauge their reactions, so I could work with and not against the grain.

After a lot of hard work, working with the local college for adult education we ended up with one of the best workforce’s I have had the pleasure of working with. Hard working, aspirational, and virtually all internal promotions right up to Senior Manager / Director level being filled by people who had started from the shop floor. One Senior Manager had started as the tea boy. We paid for quality, certitude with nationally recognised qualifucations training right up to Masteers Degrees. We had numerous people from the shop floor with degrees by the end.

That's a credit to you, the company you were running and the other senior management for being willing to come along for the journey (I assume it was not easy convincing all of them to begin with); You must feel rather proud of that achievement, and rightly so!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It's work that gives the head start - my daughter had worked as a hotel chambermaid, a waitress and a receptionist for four years before she went to university and when she graduated got the first job she applied for out of well over a hundred applicants. I'm convinced it was her experience at handling R soles both staff and customers that got her through the interview rather than her degree.