Apprentices

[cr0ft]

Hi folks.

I am wondering if I am being too tough on my apprentice. It's tricky for me as I've had 4 apprentices before him, all of whom I have got rid of within a week.

The current one has been with me for 3 months now and here is what he managed to do today: -

1st fix a WC.
1st fix waste pipe for a wall-hung basin.
Install boxing framework to box in soil stack and AAV.

Yesterday he: -

Tanked a large shower area with matting.
Connected up a basin and bath waste from where it came out of the cavity wall to the soil stack.
Helped me fit a couple of extractor fans and had a shot at core drilling them, failed miserably due to nerves working at height I think.

His work is good with only minor mistakes and it's very rare for him to have a leak.

How does this compare with what apprentices you have are doing around the 3 month point into their job? It's very difficult judging how fast/good someone should be when you don't have anyone to benchmark them against!

I figure he is worth £2.80 per hour at the moment as he is around 1/4 - 1/3 the speed of an experienced plumber.

 

[mfgs]

He doesn't sound too bad, with an apprentice you really have t expect to write off 6 months to a year before they can really be trusted and are of any real use. As long as the work is done well, to a decent standard and no leaks then the speed will come with time.

 

[Killy Bing]

I was useless at three months.....

 

[TBServices]

Sounds good enough to me pal.

 

[SimonG]

I was useless at three months.....

I cant remember 3 months, but I think my tea was drinkable by then 🙂

Sounds as though youve managed to find a half decent one.

 

[Barry98]

I'd be happy if I had him at that stage after 3 months

 

[JAH HEATING]

Take him on the ale Friday an the lappies I say

 

[Kev the gas]

Sounds like the lad has promise if he can make up some framework without too much help.

Having the balls to hang off a ladder whilst core drilling takes time to master, or you are born stupid :dizzy2:.

Give the lad time and hopefully he will come good, remember tho he is watching you and learning so any bad habits you have and get away with, he probably wont.

 

[Killy Bing]

Praise when he does something well, encourage him when he's feeling down.

buy if the neccesery books and loan them to him and every so often give him abit in them to learn

also he's is having to deal with both electrics and pluming? Allow for that

 

[IDCHAPPY]

Hi folks.

I am wondering if I am being too tough on my apprentice. It's tricky for me as I've had 4 apprentices before him, all of whom I have got rid of within a week.

The current one has been with me for 3 months now and here is what he managed to do today: -

1st fix a WC.
1st fix waste pipe for a wall-hung basin.
Install boxing framework to box in soil stack and AAV.

Yesterday he: -

Tanked a large shower area with matting.
Connected up a basin and bath waste from where it came out of the cavity wall to the soil stack.
Helped me fit a couple of extractor fans and had a shot at core drilling them, failed miserably due to nerves working at height I think.

His work is good with only minor mistakes and it's very rare for him to have a leak.

How does this compare with what apprentices you have are doing around the 3 month point into their job? It's very difficult judging how fast/good someone should be when you don't have anyone to benchmark them against!

I figure he is worth £2.80 per hour at the moment as he is around 1/4 - 1/3 the speed of an experienced plumber.

Swap you :lol:

 

[Rickster123]

£2.80 an hour... Ouch!

 

[Koogatubac]

Your price is low i would say, if hes doing what hes doing after 3 months and he knows he can make more money, he'll start changing for the worse.

I was useless aswell at 3 months. Also i wouldnt trust a apprentice with ANYTHING after a year of being with me. Had apprentices before just like you have and from experience they need to be shown a few times the same thing over again so it sticks in their head

You sound like you've got a gem! Treat him well!

 

[tamz]

Current rate for a 1st year apprentice is £5.61 plus their pension contributions of 7%

 

[Koogatubac]

When i was doing proper graft as a apprentice (i.e. A boiler a day) i was on £230 a week.

When i got my nvq 2 as a qualified plumber i got pay rise to £350. However i was expected to be fast and able to produce work

 

[tamz]

Scottish rate is £3.28

 

[cr0ft]

Your price is low i would say, if hes doing what hes doing after 3 months and he knows he can make more money, he'll start changing for the worse.

I was useless aswell at 3 months. Also i wouldnt trust a apprentice with ANYTHING after a year of being with me. Had apprentices before just like you have and from experience they need to be shown a few times the same thing over again so it sticks in their head

You sound like you've got a gem! Treat him well!

Cheers. We have a 3 year plan where he is (if all goes well) going to take over my first franchise of my business and we will start another one over in Sheffield.

I think he is pretty good to be honest, I just don't have anything to compare him against. He can be relied upon to get jobs done to a good standard, just the speed is slow but then it's only 3 months in!

My only worry really is that next year because of his age he will be on minimum wage. To make that work he really needs to be able to do his own small jobs by then. That's the first target for him!

 

[Ermintrude]

Just wait until he gets the nearly qualified attitude . Once he's alsomost qualified his attitude may become selfish and lazy as he is on home stretch and thinks is invincible. Kick his legs from under him before he quits burning all bridges and then two weeks later comes back. Once you leave your gone.

 

[cr0ft]

National minimum wage 2013/2014: Adult rate to increase by 1.9% to £6.31 per hour | XpertHR - Pay Intelligence

Minimum wages, including apprenticeship rates. £2.65/hour is currently the minimum wage for year 1 apprentices.

 

[Koogatubac]

Cheers. We have a 3 year plan where he is (if all goes well) going to take over my first franchise of my business and we will start another one over in Sheffield.

I think he is pretty good to be honest, I just don't have anything to compare him against. He can be relied upon to get jobs done to a good standard, just the speed is slow but then it's only 3 months in!

My only worry really is that next year because of his age he will be on minimum wage. To make that work he really needs to be able to do his own small jobs by then. That's the first target for him!

Totally agree, different people like to mould apprentices their way. I prefer the strict ways, just because thats where i learnt and stuff started sticking in my head.

Erm's comment is absolute spot on! What he said it always happens! Especially if your giving him a massive responsibility of your franchise, but then again, its all up to you croft 🙂

 

[Koogatubac]

Just be honest with him, how you described what hes been doing, when his wage goes up he shouldn't have a problem doing small jobs, repairs, maintenance.

 

[cr0ft]

Totally agree, different people like to mould apprentices their way. I prefer the strict ways, just because thats where i learnt and stuff started sticking in my head.

Erm's comment is absolute spot on! What he said it always happens! Especially if your giving him a massive responsibility of your franchise, but then again, its all up to you croft 🙂

Will only do it when I feel he's ready. He's just had a kid (unexpected) which is his motivator so I think he is genuinly excited about the possibility of running a ready made business in a few years.

He is ex-military and his standards are good. I think I have found a good one on reading this thread!

 

[Kev the gas]

£2.80 an hour, ex military guy !

8 hrs a day gives him £112 a week, crikey I would be careful as he may well be on his way sooner than you think.

 

[Kev the gas]

To qualify my above post, the apprentice painter on site this week is paid £ 50 a day. 20 years old with 6 months in the job.

 

[tamz]

National minimum wage 2013/2014: Adult rate to increase by 1.9% to £6.31 per hour | XpertHR - Pay Intelligence

Minimum wages, including apprenticeship rates. £2.65/hour is currently the minimum wage for year 1 apprentices.

English plumbers rates
http://www.unitetheunion.org/uploaded/documents/SNIJIBPMES Wage Agreement from July 201311-13096.pdf
Scottish rates
http://www.unitetheunion.org/uploaded/documents/SNIJIBPMES Wage Agreement from July 201311-13096.pdf
Electricians rates England
http://www.unitetheunion.org/uploaded/documents/JIBIndDet2013201411-5454.pdf

 

[IDCHAPPY]

I remember when I first started on sites as a mate, I was on £4.04 ph, them were the days :lol:

 

[Kev the gas]

I started with bg in 1986 and used to take home £60 a week inc London Weighting, can't remember the tax or ni if applicable then ( 16 years old ) for a 38hr week works out at £1.58 an hour, was well chuffed at the time.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Blimey, walk in off the street to us, no qualifications or experience, but good attitude, and its £300 pw start. At 6 months at least 10% more than that. Plus profit share. And matching pension contribution.

Send your man down to me Keiran, we'll find a job for him.

 

[Koogatubac]

Lowest ive ever been was working in morrisons stacking shelves at £3.95 a hour, had that job aswell as being a apprentice haha

 

[Ray Stafford]

Lowest I have worked for is 30p a bucket, picking blackcurrants.

I still can't drink Ribena, because the best way to make sure that a bucket of black currants weights 12.5lbs, (you didn't get paid if it was underweight) was to p1ss in it.

During the 70s, I reckon 5% of all blackcurrant juice products consisted of the pickers piddle.

 

[kirkgas]

I started on the YOP scheme in 1978 on £0.46 per hour

 

[jefaz]

How old is he? Ex military too? That's a minimum 4 year commitment.

 

[fogarty]

Blimey, walk in off the street to us, no qualifications or experience, but good attitude, and its £300 pw start. At 6 months at least 10% more than that. Plus profit share. And matching pension contribution.

Send your man down to me Keiran, we'll find a job for him.

Ray, when are you opening in Barnsley? I can start Monday.

 

[JAH HEATING]

I took home £190 a week first year, second about £220 by third I was able to earn bonus an by fourth year was on site doing y plans getting decent doe

 

[tamz]

I posted the wrong link to English plumbers rates earlier. Here they are.
http://www.unitetheunion.org/uploaded/documents/JIB PMES Rates & Allowances 2014-201511-13200.pdf

 

[Ray Stafford]

I posted the wrong link to English plumbers rates earlier. Here they are.
http://www.unitetheunion.org/uploaded/documents/JIB PMES Rates & Allowances 2014-201511-13200.pdf

Heres a funny thing.

I have been in the industry for 28 years, and that is the first time that I have ever seen "union" rates.

 

[LPC]

I just took on an apprentice about 3 weeks before xmas. I pay him £50 a day. He's doing some sort of plumbing college course and actually knows a little bit.

At the moment he's not really helping me at all because I have to check everything he does but he's well worth it at the moment just for getting him to drill holes, tidy up, hoover etc. He's very quiet, and sometimes he says he has done something when he hasn't etc. But he's only 21 and when I was 21 I was bloody useless.

Looking pretty good so far though.

 

[tamz]

Not specifically known as union rates Ray. JIB rates.

 

[Killy Bing]

First year i got nowt......

 

[cr0ft]

How old is he? Ex military too? That's a minimum 4 year commitment.

He is 21 mate. I will be straight with him re wages the whole time. As soon as he can do small jobs on his own unsupervised he will be on minimum wage with his own van. Until then to be honest he is of limited use to the business and £2.80p (paid 5 days a week for 4 days of work) is a fair reflection of how fast he is relative to a qualified plumber imo. Yes, I agree it's tough to live off, but he has a goal of running a franchise in 3 years.

The plasterer is paying his apprentice the same rate. I don't think it would be attractive to a small business to take someone on in their first year for more than that to be honest.

 

[cr0ft]

Blimey, walk in off the street to us, no qualifications or experience, but good attitude, and its £300 pw start. At 6 months at least 10% more than that. Plus profit share. And matching pension contribution.

Send your man down to me Keiran, we'll find a job for him.

In the current climate I think you will have a few people on here asking you for a job!!

 

[Ray Stafford]

In the current climate I think you will have a few people on here asking you for a job!!

In lots of towns we struggle to recruit at those rates, particularly in Surrey, Sussex and sarf London.

 

[cr0ft]

Yeah I can imagine it would be a struggle in and around London and the home counties to be honest.

 

[Killy Bing]

In lots of towns we struggle to recruit at those rates, particularly in Surrey, Sussex and sarf London.

Spent last night badgering my best mate to apply for a new job, he started on 230 a week.
5 years later hes on 250.
hes going nowhere

Shame as hes a smart lad too!

 

[tamz]

If he is 21 it is illegal for for you to pay him £2.80/hr no matter what you call his job title.

 

[cr0ft]

Flat out wrong mate, sorry. The college advised me this rate was legal for year 1 apprentices. HMRC website also lists this rate for year 1 apprentices irrespective of age.

 

[tamz]

Absolutely not wrong and i don't care what some college advised you.
Even burger king take on so called apprentices straight from school on more than that.
If he has any sense he will be off the first chance he gets.
Promises of what may or may not materialise in the future don't feed the kids or pay the bills.
Just shows how far this trade has fallen.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Sorry Tamz, Croft is correct in his first year of apprenticeship. Not in 2nd or following years.

Here is the quote from .gov.uk

[h=2]Pay and right to minimum wage[/h] Apprentices are paid from the first day of their apprenticeship and they’re entitled to the National Minimum Wage.
The current minimum wage rate for an apprentice is £2.68 per hour. This rate applies to apprentices aged 16 to 18 and those aged 19 or over who are in their first year.

My emphasis added.

Might be different in scotland.

 

[cr0ft]

HM Revenue & Customs: The national minimum wage

Tamz, whilst we may have our different opinions on the worth of year 1 apprentices, you have overstepped the mark by implying my business is employing someone illegally. If you are going to imply this against someone I would suggest it's prudent to read the relevant regulations first.

 

[mfgs]

I think this is the first time I have ever known tamz to be wrong, its a sad day.

 

[tamz]

HM Revenue & Customs: The national minimum wage

Tamz, whilst we may have our different opinions on the worth of year 1 apprentices, you have overstepped the mark by implying my business is employing someone illegally. If you are going to imply this against someone I would suggest it's prudent to read the relevant regulations first.

Apparently i am mistaken and you are acting within the letter of the law. I apologise if i offended you.

How you run your business is up to you.

 

[tamz]

I think this is the first time I have ever known tamz to be wrong, its a sad day.

Nobody knows everything :wink:

 

[SimonG]

Difficult one this. Adds to the many reasons why i dont have an apprentice.

A spotty 16 year old then i would have no qualms about paying as little as i could get away with.

A 21 year old with a kid who has served in the armed forces? Hmmmm.

It brings in legal and moral connatations. Its business after all. But!

I will stay on the fence on this one.

 

[tamz]

More social and moral for me Simon but i'll say no more.

 

[SimonG]

I might just slip off the fence here, but......

The world is full of half wits who cant get there nose out of a mobile phone and it seems rare to be able to get hold of a grafter that wants to get on.

Would anybody want to loose that for a few quid an hour?



Damn. I was determined to stay on the fence. Must be the beer.

 

[Ray Stafford]

I would take a different view of this.

Firstly, there are lots of moral and social aspects of being an employer, but the lifechoices of your employees form no part of them. Whether the employee has a kid has no impact on what value he/she brings to the organisation.

Employee: "Hey boss, I need a payrise"

Boss: "Why is that?"

Employee: "Because my missus is expecting"

Boss: "I never touched her..."

In terms of age, we have a simple policy. If someone is doing a man's job, then he deserves a man's wage, and we have had 17yr olds on full adult money. If he's making a fair effort, but we are having to make allowances for youth ("he's only a kid...") then its fair to pay less money. People mature at very different rates.

There is absolutely no doubt that most employees are more trouble and expense than they are worth on day 1. At some point they pass from being a liability to being an asset. Where that point comes depends on the attitude, skills and experience of the employee, the nature of the job, and the training investment made by the employer. In the case of apprentices, that timescale can be months or even years.

If its fair to ask an employer to take a long term view, and make an investment, why is it wrong to ask an employee to do the same thing? No one held a gun to Keiran's employees head.

I think the only obligation on Keiran is to obey the law and honour his promises about the future.

We have made a business decision to set our entry level pay at around £1 per hour more than NMW. But that isn't a moral decision - its a business decision, because we don't want to be recruiting at the bottom of the pool.

The moral decisions come later, after the employee has been with you for a while.

 

[Ermintrude]

Don't pay them enough and the steal or take the pizazz

 

[mfgs]

I think it depends on the individual. I took the decision to move from site work to house bashing at the end of the second year of my apprenticeship. I still had two years to go of my apprenticeship but realised site work wasn't for me. I had a few job offers but took the one with a one man band. This was the lowest pay on offer, but I thought in the long term it would benefit me the most. I am happy with the decision I made as I learnt a lot. If the apprentice is happy to take the money and learn from a good guy then everyone is happy.

 

[turnpin]

Apparently i am mistaken and you are acting within the letter of the law. I apologise if i offended you.

How you run your business is up to you.

Honesty and integrity ....brave man to hold up his hands when admitting he may be wrong.Croft must do what he deems to be right and fair as he who pays the piper calls the tune......mucho mutual respecto to you both regards Turnpin

 

[Koogatubac]

Right what erm says, dont pay them well and they will steal to make their wage up, even taking few fittings a day soon fills a bucket up! Also taking bit of scrap adds up whereas if you pay them decent they will hand it in

 

[Ray Stafford]

Don't pay them enough and the steal or take the pizazz

Right what erm says, dont pay them well and they will steal to make their wage up,

Over the years I have caught plenty of theives. There doesn't seem to be any correlation between pay levels and stealing - in fact if anything its our higher paid employees that are more likely to steal (although that may be because they have more opportunity).

A thief is a thief. Give him a £million and he will still be a theif.

 

[cr0ft]

Hi all. Thankyou Tamz for your apology. Let's forget about it all I say. I will bend over backwards to make sure I can keep him employed on minimum wage next year. That is a huge commitment financially for a 2 man business to be honest. I am making sure I can give him the best training possible and I actively stop him being used just as a labourer on our larger projects with multiple tradespeople in the property. He's not there to do that, he is there to learn imo.

He splits all scrap with me 50/50 and whenever he does well or goes above and beyond the call of duty I make sure he gets a bit more cash in his back pocket.

I am working hard to get him trained up to the stage he can do his own small jobs in October. I also need to save up for the 2nd van to ensure I can keep him on then as that frees me or him up to do the jobs we are currently having to turn away, including bathrooms.