To celebrate National Careers Week 2023, we spoke with Ben Richards, our Maintenance Operative, who is completing a Multi Trade apprenticeship at South and City College Birmingham, about why he chose a vocational route to begin his career journey.
I was inspired to go down the apprentice route because I wanted to learn valuable skills and experience on the job whilst studying my apprenticeship at college. It will provide me with the foundation to enhance and learn more skills in the work environment once I have completed my course.
Taking the apprenticeship route has made me realise what career I would like to pursue because it has taught me the basics of everything I need to know on site and how to engage with clients directly.
What does a typical day like at Igloo?
I am always faced with a new challenge and often in a lot of different environments too, I have great job satisfaction working at Igloo and feel like a valued member of the team.
A typical day at Igloo begins with assessing what is required for the specific job as soon as we arrive, understanding the task in hand and the materials we require.
I’m building my experience and relationships with the team I work alongside, from plumbers and carpenters to decorators and plasterers, by watching how they go about their trade. The next stage is for me to begin to pick up some of the areas of work they focus on, with the team watching over me to broaden my skills and experience.
What do you enjoy most about your apprenticeship?
The thing I enjoy most about my role is I’m not just here to learn one thing. I’m here to learn and get to grips with all the trades, the role comes with a variety of things to learn. It’s enjoyable not doing the same thing every day, both the range of work we do at Igloo as well as the combination of studying at college.
Being on the job shows you exactly how the work gets done in the real world. It provides me with live examples of the challenges and difficulties you may come up against, demonstrating how you have to get around them in order for the job to be done properly.
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