Emergency Response Apprentice Review

My role is to learn the skills of a First call operative. This involves shadowing a trained FCO who is my mentor and time away in training acadamies to achieve my qualification.

During these 9 months i have worked for national grid i have developed a lot of my practical engineering skills. Some of the new skills i have learnt involve talking to senior meembers of a team i.e managers of all levels as we are pushed out of our comfort zones which develops skills in all areas.

I have thouroughly enjoyed the programme so far. I have done previous apprenticeships and this gives me an insight of the quality of the training here at national grid and how it values its employees, even at apprentice level.

Everyone i have met here enjoys their work and this runs right through the workforce. I feel that we are valued to do an important job by the company we work for and this contributes to peoples good attitudes and moods. On a whole i feel very valued by the company

We have been given a full years programme at the start of the apprenticeship and apart from minor changes it hasnt differed. The balance between onsite work and traning is good.

Our training provider helps us a lot as a group and individually and there is always support needed by our main tutor and any other people in the training centres.

There is always opportunitys to ask for help or support if needed. Our managers from the diffrent areas of our programme are in constant contact via email and telephone. The support from national grid from all its employees is very high

The salary we recieve at this early stage in the programme is very good. As we are in the basic training and dont offer the company much at the minute they pay us a fair wage which is higher than a lot of other similar apprenticeships i have seen.

The employees get together on various occasions outside of work. There are fun days in the summer and your usual christmas do's. In my 9 months here i have been out to do various things with people from work including volunteering opportunitys although this was inside works time.

Yes

As i have thouroughly enjoyed my work here so far and believe national grid is a great company to work for who respects and values its employees.

To involve yourself in as many opportunitys they give you as this greatly imporoves your skills and makes you discover things about yourself you didnt know. Work hard and you will be rewarded. There are lots of chances to better yourself so take those with both hands.