overhead lines man Review

i am an overhead linesman, i undertake maintenance on over head lines, climbing the towers and following procedures to complete the work safely. work in gangs and with bosses so communication is common in day to day work. we have many courses internally and learn lots of different skills. my responsibilities are to keep up to date with all my work and courses and to learn my job to become a fully fledged linesman. i have to look after myseld and others in the workplace and do things safely in line with company policy.

i have learned lots of new skills through my apprenticeship, We attended a manual handling course, asbestos awareness training, first aid training, climbing equipment inspection, and BESC training which has to be completed to be recognised as a person within National Grid. climbing appreciation, tower rescue, rigging and slinging, fundamental knowledge, procedures and documents, maintaining conductors, jointing and temporary tower assembly. Around completing these there are other course to be completed such as hand skills, IPAF, IPAL, city and guilds which is completed with all other apprentices and is 2339 in electrical power engineering. As an OHL group we also complete a QCF level 3 course and we write about different jobs and we have done and relate them to the course. we have done rope access courses too and have refresher courses for most of these courses that have a lifespan. i took this job because i was already involved in manual work and had good hand skills. i have learned lots of knowledge and skills that have carried over into parts of my job.

i enjoy my job role and the tasks that we do, i get on with the people i work with most people seem to be friendly and helpful when you need it, company culture is good however parts of it is very slow the logistics and communications within the company isnt very good as some things take a long time to get done. i was impressed with a lot of the resources that national provide and offer however even if some take a while to be done it does get done. i enjoyed my apprenticeship and would encourage others to do it.

i sometimes feel that i am treated as a lesser part of my gang as i am left out from jobs even though they would be valueable learning experience. but other than that i have good relationship with managers. even though we complete a lot of courses there is not enough insentive to put the extra work to achieve above target other than a personal goal. a few projects are offered to get involved in but i feel they need to be made more avaliable as it can be hard to find what things are going on. e.g an email for all activities by national grid each week. i feel valued within my gang but not very much at the training centre as it feels you are just there to pass the courses but they do try to leave as little pressure on you as possible and leave you to your own things which works well.

the programme i did seem a bit mixed up and could have been much better structured as it could go weeks between courses where it would be hard to pick it up again. they is plenty of time to study and plenty of support and help if you need it. there was an induction at the begining and consisted of getting your basic skills such as communication up to date and health and safety knowledge. we have 10 weekly reviews with managers to keep track of our progress.

as we had external companies doing some of our training it was sometimes hard to get support but all of the internal stuff is realy easy to get help as a lot of the workers have come thrlough the same programme and know what it is like and have done it. for internal work we have an intranet with any information you could need. poeple are easy to talk to with any problems you migh have. people are generally interested in iving you any help you need but to bear in mind that these people are busy with other things too at times.

my managers are evry good genereally and will help with anything i need. a mentor is a good idea however i have not spent a lot of time with mine as he has had a lot of time off. but other poeple have willingly showed me the rope instead. my mentor and other have always had a good attitude towards supporting me.

at first it is hard to contain the travel costs to the training place but if a company van was avaliable from the begining it would be much easier. the wage paid is quite good for an apprenticeship but it can still be hard to support yourself depending on personal differences/circumstances but each year the salary does get better so it is not too bad.

yes but they can be hard to get wind of, a company emial detailing all events weekly or a calender with them on would be better as i think a lot more people would attend if they could, knew about them. we dont get much in the way of leisure/ sports but it would be great if we could get gym discounts or something. at eakring there needs to be more facilities as the gym is great but too small for the amount of people there and not really a lot else other than a 5 a side pitch. and most external stuff got stopped.

Yes

because they train you with lots of skills and give you good oppertunities, and they give the employees some trust and look after you.

be able to drive. be willing to learn is a key phrase, they want to offer you lots of skills, show that you are willing to do them all and more this is what they want, dont ask about money not what an employer wants to hear. research the job role and ask questions about it, show interest.