Apprentice Access Technician Review

My day to day role on this apprenticeship is an access field technician, this invloves the installation and fault fixing of Virgin Media products and services within customer homes. This is could be anything from phonelines, braodband or Virgin TV and can involve many different skills to face the challenges that I come across on a day to day basis. This job also requires customer interaction, this also requires a set of different skills needed to respond to the different personalities of the public and how to act if something may go wrong on a job. This job requires a lot of responsibility such as getting to jobs on time and helping out collegues, being punctual is key in this job role to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Whilst working on this apprenticeship I have learnt many different skills that I have benefitted from greatly. The skills that I have learnt vary a lot such as learning the job itself to learning how to drive a van. The skills I have learnt on this apprenticeship are learning the job itself, this has required a lot of learning and practical work to get to the stage I am at the moment. This involved online courses and classroom based work, this helped me learn the theory of the job itself and helped me gather a basic understanding of how things work in this industry. After learning the theory, applying it out in the field really helped and reinforced my learning, doing the job itself and getting hands on expereience made me feel comfortable in the job. As well as carrying out online training courses I also went on other training days such as NRSWA and Drill Training. Both of these external courses helped gather all the skills needed to be prepared to carry out this job role to the best of my ability. I also complete extra training on an induction week that involved Health & Safety, manual handling, pit lifting and the use of different pit lifters and gas monitor usage.

I do enjoy the apprentice, however it does have it's pros and cons like most programmes/courses. This apprenticeship has many great things to say about it, these things include the skills and knowledge that Virgin Media prepare us with that allow us to work safely and efficiently in the company. I enjoy working in a team and taking in part in team events and down time where we share our experiences and stories that we come across within the job on day to day basis. The apprenticeship has reached my expectations, everything has gone pretty much how I thought it would. The work load is a a bit more that I thought it would be, and as apprentices we are sometimes given more work than we can managed and I strongly feel that we need the extra time that we're originally given to complete jobs. This is because we are learning still and do not want to pick up any bad habits, for example taking shortcuts and rushing work that may effect us in the future. However, having said that overall I do enjoy the job and it is a great apprentice programme.

I do feel valued by Virgin Media and I feel that as colleagues we are treat well and get many good benefits and offers in our favour. We get recognition by managers and colleagues for good work and involvement within tasks and different projects.

The programme is quite organised, the induction was good and ran smoothly, health & safety, manual handling and job training were all given as well as uniform and PPE gear. We also did separate training weeks in installation and service fault finding, these were both organised pretty good as we were issued with company cars to travel to the training centre. During the training week we had some issues with pool cars to and from the training centre from the hotel, those issues including vehicles not having road tax and incorrect fuel cars, however this was not a major issue. As apprentices we get support out in the field, this support comes from Fields Managers, Apprentice Support Manager, Principle Technicians and other colleagues. If there is ever a problem there's always someone who I can ring who will talk me through what's happening. Throughout the apprenticeship programme we have support meetings every two weeks, these meetings consist of 121 meetings with my manager to discuss how things are going and if everything is okay and that there are no issues. There is also a mentor system that involves a Support Manager comes out in the field to assess my progress and provides me with tips and improvements to apply to my everyday work.

N/A

I receive plenty of support from the training provider on the apprenticeship programme, this support comes from Fields Managers, Apprentice Support Manager, Principle Technicians and other colleagues. A support Manager comes out in the field to assess my progress and provides me with tips and improvements to apply to my everyday work, this is helpful as he wants to help because he wants to, and enjoys helping, not because he has to and it's his job.

I am more than happy with my salary and it meets all of my costs.

There are many opportunities outside of work, these include charity events. This includes Coast to Coast cycling, and local community work.

Yes

I would recommend Virgin Media to a friend as the company treats you well and takes into consideration what the customer wants, as well as their employee's. they have many different offers and benefits for employee's and customers.

For anyone applying for Virgin Media the advice I would give is to be yourself, don't be anyone fake or try to give answers you think they want to hear. Use your initiative during the application process, interview and assessment days to make yourself stand out from the others.