How good is your training provider?

The construction industry is massive, it turns over ￡100 billion plus per year in the UK. The industry is made up of many different skills, and the skills needed to keep up in an ever-changing world means that you need to keep up with your professional development by doing courses. In some trades this is compulsory, for example electricians need to update their knowledge regularly to keep up with the current regulations.

I taught for many years in the construction department at a local college and saw high quality training being delivered to hundreds of apprentices every year, this was just in one town don’t forget, so the training required to keep the whole industry going for the whole country is huge.

When I hit 50, I took stock and decided that I wanted to do my own thing, and to cut a long story short I am now co-owner of a private training company called PaintTech Training Academy. Because we are decorators, we focus on cutting edge technologies that decorators need to stay competitive in our industry.

To run a training academy well is not an easy task and because I am from a college background, I have high standards that I like to adhere to. We have developed our courses so that the students get a good experience with a mix of classroom and workshop activities. We have developed high quality learning materials so that the student takes away a textbook (written by us) for reference. We are all qualified in our trade and we are qualified as teachers too, which of course is just as important.

We also focus on all important Health and Safety matters that relate to spraying and make it an integral part of the learning experience. We feel that this is very important for the student to go away knowing how to work in a safe manner.

Our industry leading airless spray plaster course has been assured by City and Guilds so that the student knows that the course has been quality assured by an external (and very reputable) organisation.

For City and Guilds to put their badge of approval on a course is no easy task. You get one shot at it so that you have to get the offer right first time. You need to develop course materials and assessment that meet City and Guilds very high standards. We have worked very hard to gain the City and Guilds assured badge and are very proud to be associated with a world class awarding body.

We are also a CITB approved training organisation, and this means that any decorator who requires training can apply for a training grant from the CITB to pay for this. The CITB have written standards for a wide range of short courses aimed at decorators. The standards are followed by the training provider and the CITB audit us every year to ensure that we are following the correct standards.

I feel that training is the number 1 factor that differentiates a business from the crowd. To stay ahead of the competition, you need to be using the latest technologies and your staff need to be trained to use them. We lag behind other countries in many aspects of construction work and we are not as productive as an industry as we could be. Colleges are working hard to stay cutting edge, but it is very expensive to buy the latest kit and stay current. I think sometimes private training organisations can find it easier to stay current and are more in tune with what the industry is asking for.

If you are thinking of doing some training with a private training organisation then I would advise you to do your due diligence and make sure that the company offering the training really do know what they are doing. Look at the reviews from previous students and check that they have a recognised stamp of approval from someone like City and Guilds or the Construction Industry Training Board.