The start of the New Year saw us welcome two new trainee tree surgeons to the team. Toby and Zak have joined us with a couple of years solid experience in first jobs already under their belts, and both were looking to begin a professional career which would offer them recognized industry training and progression.
Across the agricultural sector, there has been a serious shortage of young entrants coming in to the workforce over the last 10 years, and like many firms, we have found it difficult to recruit. We’ve tried the formal apprenticeship route, and taken graduates of the Level 2 Arboriculture at course at regional land-based college in Sparsholt.
Both of these routes have been broadly successful, but having trained and mentored many young starters over the years ourselves, we were confident enough this time to develop a mor structured two-year training programme and run it in-house. Training in industry-related accredited practical qualifications comes from our chosen training partner Tony Darbyshire at Sawpod, a training firm we have used repeatedly over the years.
Training brand new starters this way is a very significant investment for a small business. But doing it this way means that we can involve all of our team in developing Toby and Zak, providing an opportunity for them to develop skills of mentoring and training, variety in their roles and a huge sense of satisfaction as we see the two trainees grow in confidence, skills and capacity to contribute to the whole team effort.
Nearly a month in, both new lads have been involved a wide range of operational tasks, are loving working outdoors and are looking forward to their first assessed training in March.
For advice or a quote for work to your trees, call Andrew on 01256 817369, 07771 883061 or email him at Andrew@primarytreesurgeons.co.uk.