Pearce Platford

Stroud

Terry Bray

Training Co-ordinator

Stroud College has helped a local electrical engineering company slash the drop-out rate for its younger employees from 30% to zero.

Terry Bray, a director of Pearce Platford as well as its Training Co-ordinator, says the college has helped transform the future for the youngsters and the company itself.

“One of the biggest problems we have had in the past is we used to take young people from school and they’d come to us for an interview,” he says. “The success rate was about 70% because when they leave school they’re not quite sure what they want to do.

“So we’ve set up an arrangement with the college. They do foundation courses for school leavers so they can go to the college to learn the basics.

“We take the lads from that course on work experience and give them the chance of a bit of training. It gives them an insight.

“There is a drop-out rate from the course throughout the year, but we say that if they still want to do it after 12 months, they are keen.

“So far, we have had no failures. The apprentices who come to us are much more switched on.”

He says the first two years of an apprenticeship are an expense to the company, but in the last year of it they are able to work on their own under instruction.

“The more able ones like Dan Miles are able to do it in the last two years of their apprenticeship,” he says. “He was working for a small company and not able to get the over-all training he wanted. The college asked me if we were interested in taking him on.

“We were able to provide him with a wider range of skills and training he couldn’t have found elsewhere.

“He’s come on in leaps and bounds and is a model apprentice. He’s above average and we are extremely pleased with him.

“Dan is exceptional. He’s going on to university as well.”

Dan says he would recommend apprenticeships to other young people because it has been such a valuable experience.

“It was earn as you learn and led directly into a career,” he says. “The apprenticeship was tailored specifically to my needs.

“The college have been great. They’ve been very supportive to me and the facilities there are new and right up to date.”

Mr Bray says apprenticeships at his company offer young people a rare chance to learn the whole gamut of electrical work from domestic to commercial and industrial.

“One of the biggest problems we have is recruitment,” he says. “We find apprentices are the best form of recruitment because we can mould them the way we want them to be.

“You hope to employ apprentices and keep them with you for a long time because they’re the future of the industry.

“There’s a shortage of apprentices, so you can imagine the importance we place on them. Because they work the way we want them to work, the transition from apprentice to electrician is easier.

“We have an excellent relationship with Stroud College. We have a great rapport and I’m in constant contact with the electrical department. That would be very difficult for a one-man-band to do.”

Stroud College in Gloucestershire