Multi-skilled maintenance engineering apprentice Review

I work within a food and drinks production environment working as an engineering apprentice. Our main role involves working in the workshop with a wide range of machinery and equipment to gain a wider understanding of what different maintenance is required within the factory. The daily work involves mechanical and electrical engineering, along with aspects of fabrication.

I have learned many new skills during my time at both work and college. I have learned how to interpret technical information such as engineering drawings and manuals as well as how to use this to aid the maintenance process. I have learned many practical skills including welding and fabricating.

I would say that I thoroughly enjoy my programme as I feel it is important in the progression of myself and my career. It is not as an easy programme but it is very rewarding when you realise how much you have learned in such a small space of time.

At first our programme was very badly organised due to the fact that we were the first year group from both our company and our college to sit this type of qualification. However as time has gone in and people have settled more into the new way of doing things, things have got better

Whenever I require support about anything, I know I can get it from my employer. We are given advice and support with our college work which helps us to do it in our own time. We get get support with our college work, our responsibilities at work and our personal lives

Sometimes the lack of communication from our training provider is detrimental to our success as we can miss out on things we were supposed to be aware of. There have been a few cases of missing work after members of staff have made mistakes but we are assured things are being put into place to counteract this.

When we had practical lessons on things like fabricating, welding and hand tools, I feel like we learned a lot of important skills that helped when we were back at work. Learning the correct ways to use hand tools and machine tools was very valuable to my role in the workshop

There are occasional outside of work activities put on at work or by people from work. I am not usually involved in these as I like to have time away from work in the evenings but I understand that there are golf days out, hikes and long walks along with football evenings.

Yes

Nestle have supported my development into a more mature, better skilled person. I would recommend working for a company like us to anyone as the size of the company gives you the full capacity to grow. We have opportunities that smaller companies may not have to provide training and specialisms that come from higher up within our company

At nestle behaviours and attitudes are more important than initial skills. You can learn any practical or technical skills once you have started at the company as college and colleagues will support this, as long as you have a good attitude and a keen willingness to learn at the ready.