Craig Wilson, Area Manager for Seddon Property Services, a national painting, decorating and maintenance contractor, is one of many employers who are training their recruits through Eastleigh College’s new maintenance apprenticeship programme.
With the property services industry facing a shortfall in all-round trade skills, Seddon has invested in its future by recruiting thirty new apprentices nationally, including two locally, to plug the industry skills gap. Craig comments:
"At Seddon we are looking to the future, and want to help develop young people with the skills we need, knowing that there is a lack of them out there at the moment, so apprenticeships are massively important for companies such as ourselves."
Apprenticeship training has been fundamental to this family owned construction company’s success. With an annual training and development review in place for all staff, ensuring that they possess the required skills to carry out their work to the highest stands, it’s not hard to see why Seddon have embraced this new apprenticeship programme with Eastleigh College. Craig adds:
“As a company we have always taken on quite a number of apprentices across the board, but we were predominantly a painting and decorating company that has developed into property maintenance.
“All my supervisors are previous apprentices, and have worked their way through. For me, going into property maintenance via this apprenticeship is good, as I am looking at these lads as my future supervisors. I’m not just looking at them as a one or two year apprenticeship; we are trying to plan their futures for them, looking long-term.”
“On the back of this, I have now placed two apprentices on the Eastleigh College maintenance apprenticeship, a new apprenticeship that we at Seddon are keen to support”.
Jake Ellis, aged 16 from Eastleigh, is one of Seddon’s two new recruits currently undertaking the maintenance apprenticeship at the College. He says that the training is helping him with his future aspirations to develop his career within the property services industry. Jake adds:
“I wanted to do an apprenticeship because you can learn and work at the same time, and you get money for learning, which kind of got me in to it. The apprenticeship course is really good. It also splits up my work week, so it doesn’t seem as long as it actually is. What I’m learning at the moment is plastering, it’s hard, but I really like it.”
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