Substation Craftsperson Review

When there is outage work I am always busy carrying out essential maintenance on the high voltage equipment. This is can be rewarding and enjoyable as there is a good team spirit with the other workers. However, depending on the area you are based in there can be long periods of no outages happening, especially in the winter. This can lead to boredom on site and it is hard to keep motivated in these circumstances. There are also usually lots of delays when maintenances do occur due to issues with the planning of the job, resources etc. When it runs smoothly it's good but when it doesn't it's not so good.

I have learned lots of new skills since starting my apprenticeship, although I feel like the structure of the learning process could be better. For example, carrying out a course at the training centre is a good base to work off and the quality of the training is a very good standard. However, due to the large variation of the work we do, you may not carry out the same type of work since being trained on it for months to come. This isn't very good at reinforcing the learning as by the time comes to do the same job again, it can be hard to remember what you learned months before. I believe it would be more helpful to be trained on a certain type of equipment at the training centre and then have this followed up by being planned on similar work throughout the country. This would help reinforce the skills that we'd started building from the training course.

I find the overall experience enjoyable, especially the training side of things as I would say this has always been well structured and clear. What isn't so good is the independence we are given. Although this may sound good, it actually makes it harder to find the work we need to carry out for our logbooks. This task is completely left up to the apprentices to do which seems different to other apprenticeships. Other apprenticeships would have a person who's designated job is to plan apprentices on the jobs they require, in order to gain the skills they need and gather their evidence to ultimately qualify. Having to do this additional step as an apprentice can be hard, long and stressful doesn't make sense as it is not part of our job role once qualified.

Again, this is answer has two sides. When planned on for training at the training centre, everything is well planned out. The information is communicated well and it is always clear about where we have to be, on what dates, for what course and at what times. When planned to be on site however, there is very little structure. It is left up to the apprentices to find out what we are meant to be doing and find any work we need ourselves. If this can't be done then there is very rarely a solution and we are usually told that we must be able to find the work we need one way or another. This is easier said than done as the majority of outages are delayed, cancelled or otherwise changed at the last moments.

The support is good and I feel like I can go to my employer with any concerns. I would say the support on site is better as there is a greater understanding of the issues we may face. Trying to explain these issues to those at the training centre can sometimes be difficult because there is a bad understanding between those at the training centre and those on site. It almost feels like two different worlds where both sides don't quite fully understand each other on the issues that there are.

The training provider can be hit or miss depending on the issue you have. Sometimes a simple solution can be given to a question you may have, and other times there can be a long or different answer to a question you would otherwise think has a simple answer. The support is usually quite quick although sometimes you might not receive an answer at all.

The training is good but like mentioned previously there is not enough of it to help us when we then carry out similar jobs on site. We spend a lot of time doing training courses which we struggle to see the relevance of due to not putting into practice in a site environment. In my opinion I then think we don't spend enough time being trained on the equipment we would be working with regularly. One training course is deemed as sufficient, whereas I think these should be yearly during the apprenticeship or at least given more time to take in.

As far as I am aware there are extra-curricular activities presented but there aren't loads to choose from. It's more a case of you decide if you want to do something that is presented to you rather than it being possible to browse different options of what extra-curricular activities you'd like to outside of work.

Yes

It's a good job once you are qualified but a bit of a struggle getting there. If you can get through that then it's probably worth it.

Have lots of patience and you'll get there.