 With ten engineers in the South West and a further ten in the South East, Pulse Services Pride themselves on the quality of their workmanship and customer service. This wouldn’t be possible without a highly skilled workforce, explains contracts manager Peter Duncan…
Training is essential for us. Without it we wouldn’t have the client base we have; indeed on certain sites we wouldn’t even be considered for the work if we didn’t meet a certain criteria. This means training is commercially important to us. But it’s also about having high quality engineers, maintaining excellence and retaining our position in the marketplace. As well as a business incentive, training helps us help our team to maintain a high standard.
We train our engineers to NVQ levels 2 and 3, as well as apprentice training, with one currently studying refrigeration and air conditioning. In the office we have technical staff trained to HNC level and we’re currently looking at Business Link support for further management training.
Having trained staff in place has given us the confidence that, when we tender for work, we can face the customers with the knowledge that we’re backed up by a sound skills base to follow it through. We have a good, solid client base and many satisfied customers who proactively recommend us. Quite often I’ve been told by a client that we’re not the cheapest but they like our work and the service we provide. Without the right skills in place this wouldn’t be possible.
Our continuity of clients is also testament to our workforce. Homebase have been a client of ours for 22 years, and for the last five years Bath Spa University has renewed its contract with us year on year, which is an excellent indication of the quality of our staff and their work.
We’re now getting actively involved in renewable technologies. Our engineers are skilled with the core competences, but up-skilling in new technologies will soon be part of the training schedule so we’re prepared for the future.
As well as training in-house, we’re committed to developing the wider industry. I sit on SummitSkills’ Sector Skills Agreement, implementation group as it’s important to us to ensure standards are being maintained across the whole sector, as it ultimately affects our business. It’s a really good forum; you meet companies from all different disciplines and its great to learn from others and share your own information.
I’ve also signed up to be a schools ambassador, to encourage young people to consider building services engineering as a career choice. Our sector needs to open students’ eyes to the career opportunities we can offer and I see it as an opportunity to get involved and play my part.
“Having staff in place has always given us the confidence that, when we tender for work, we can face the customers with the knowledge that we’re backed up by a sound skills base to follow it through.”
We want to encourage further business development with our office staff; we have a committed administration team and we’d like to train and empower them to spot new business opportunities. We’re currently speaking to Business Link about working with a consultant who can help us with this.
We will continue to maintain our skills and maximise the potential of anyone who would like to develop further: our recent award-winning apprentice is now keen to undertake an electrical design course; I see this as an investment for our business. If staff show real potential for the future you have to support them and you will reap the benefits.
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Electrical
