Supervision of apprentices/adult trainees

[beatboaby924y]

Hi Guys,

I was hoping for your thoughts about the supervision of apprentices/adult trainees?

I had a discussion with someone today about this subject and was hoping for some of your views on the subject.

Should apprentices/adult trainee's be working along side an electrician or approved electrician and be under their direct supervision I guess you could call it or would it be acceptable for the apprentice/adult trainee to be working on their own but have an electrician or approved electrician go back and check the work they've carried out like for instance check connections they've make etc.?

Hoping someone knew the correct practice, thanks in advance.

Beat

 

[snowhead]

1st / 2nd year,, Along side or in the vicinity, same house if Domestic, same floor if Commercial unless it's several acres..
No work on previously live circuits unless checked and locked off by Supervising person.
Then following that you know whether you can trust them on their own.

 

[Tiny Spark]

Both IMO.
The way I work with my apprentices typically means I will show them how to do things be it stripping a flex or bending a conduit whatever.
Then I will send them off to carry out a task on their own while I sit and watch em having a cuppa LOL.
Check their work once its done and advise from there.

At the end of the day Engineers tend to be hands on people and learn by doing, I dont see the point in having them stand at the bottom of the ladder and watch me because at the end of the day they 1) Get bored 2) Get the "that looks a piece of ****!" attitude and 3) Dont actually learn anything.

Obviously they only get given tasks I think they can handle and be safe with, I wouldn't let them isolate, live test etc until they were quite advanced and proved they were capable and trustworthy to do so.

Every person is different and you have to treat them as such.

 

[beatboaby924y]

Thanks guys for your comments.

What about connecting up accessories or db's?

 

[johnboy6083]

I agree!

An explanation of what your about to do & why, them witnessing you do it, then next time, they have a go with your supervision. Only you can judge when they can be trusted to complete tasks unsupervised.

 

[Tiny Spark]

Thanks guys for your comments.

What about connecting up accessories or db's?

Again depends, once they are capable then yes why not.

 

[Beavstro]

Well as an adult trainee......

I think it very much is a person by person thing.

If I get shown how to do something that's fine, I'll have a go at it, if I get stuck or want further Instruction ill ask for it, I want to be the best I can be at my trade.

Frankly I'd be insulted if my supierior went around after me pulling on my terminations to check if they were tight. A quick look at it to say "yeah that's good, or you could improve it by..." Etc etc.

I feel best practice is to ask the person (if you think they should be capable of the task) if they feel comfortable to do the task. They should say yeah no problem, or yeah, but could you give me some guidance here.

 

[Tiny Spark]

Frankly I'd be insulted if my supierior went around after me pulling on my terminations to check if they were tight. A quick look at it to say "yeah that's good, or you could improve it by..." Etc etc.

That may be fine for you, But if you were my apprentice I would come and check your connections the first few times to make sure you had done them ok.
If you hadnt I would check more often until I was happy with them.
Also if you had done them loose you would be smacked across the head with a screwdriver!

Nothing personal to you here, but I learnt the hard way that you cant trust a adult trainee to have any more common sense than a 16 year old!
So I treat all trainee's the same until I can gauge their level of experience and competence.

 

[Marvo]

Frankly I'd be insulted if my supierior went around after me pulling on my terminations to check if they were tight. A quick look at it to say "yeah that's good, or you could improve it by..." Etc etc.

I'm afraid you'd be often insulted if you were one of my apprentices. I regularly used to remove ramdom terminations to check the quality of it. Even with 2nd and 3rd year there were many cases where issues were found.

 

[Beavstro]

Yeah I guess that's fair enough the first couple of times, to make sure you were happy with the terminations (or whatever other work I had done). Like we've said though I guess it's pretty person specific.
youll know the type of person your working with and need to gauge how close an eye you need to keep on them.

 

[7029 dave]

When I was in my 3rd year I was RUNNING jobs industrial ones at that.

 

[Engineer54]

Sorry, but No 3rd year apprentice should be put in a position of ''Running jobs'' of any description, and doesn't say much for the company you were working for either!!

 

[Knobhead]

If you are serious about training apprentices there are courses available. I was a company approved trainer before I came out of my time.
Over the years I went on to qualify to teach tradesmen how to train apprentices. A trainer of trainers.

To give structured training it has to be to a planned but flexible schedule. Not every apprentice is going to progress at the same rate.

 

[7029 dave]

Sorry, but No 3rd year apprentice should be put in a position of ''Running jobs'' of any description, and doesn't say much for the company you were working for either!!

Agreed En54, remember it well lol, a so called "qualified electrician" could not do conduit work so the boss gave me the job, but he said I was competent which I was!!,don't think id be the first or the last to be but in that situation, maybe I was just too good at what I did!!.Look at the lot they turn out today qual first learn job as you go whats all that about!!