Skills Archives - Page 57 of 58

Applications open for the new Employer Directory for Apprenticeship EQA

by Clair Mooney | 21 Jan, 2021 | Skills

The Institute announced its plans to move to a simplified EQA system in August 2020. The changes will see EQA delivered by Ofqual or, for integrated degree apprenticeships, the Office for Students (OfS).

The Institute is now setting up a new group of professional and employer-led organisations – called the Employer Directory – for Ofqual and OfS to draw on industry expertise.

We want as many sector representative bodies as possible to apply and support us with real industry insight. This will keep employers at the heart of protecting quality in apprenticeships. Please share the Institute’s employer directory page with your networks and across your social media channels.

Call for assessors for the finishes and interiors sector occupations

by Clair Mooney | 20 Jan, 2021 | Skills

There is a demand for people with occupational expertise to become vocational and end point assessors for finishing and interiors occupations. More colleges and independent training providers are now preparing to deliver apprenticeships and other training programmes for Dryliners, Ceiling Fixers, Partition Installers and Plasterers, people with experience are now required to pass on their skills and knowledge to the next generation of operatives.

If you feel you have reached that point in your career when it’s time to give something back, vocational and end point assessment is definitely worth considering. You will need good interpersonal, administrative and organisational skills and the more occupational experience you have the better you will be equipped to assess an individual’s skills and knowledge. Being a part of people’s development and witnessing their success is very rewarding. If you are interested please visit https://www.nwskillsacademy.co.uk/ or call 0161 442 4344.

George Swann FIS Skills and Training Lead said:

“Becoming an assessor can be a secure and rewarding career choice and the opportunity to shape the next generation of talent. It is a key role in the success of the sector, helping new entrants to gain their qualifications and become highly skilled in their trade. This is a fantastic opportunity for experienced industry professionals to use their skills and knowledge in a new capacity and FIS encourage you to find out more. The continuing shortage of skilled labour will not be address without good quality training and assessment”.

Further information can be found at

NOCN Level 3 Award in Assessing Competence in the Work Environment – NOCN and Become an End Point Assessor

https://www.cityandguilds.com/search?n=0&q=end+point+assessment&s=relevance

If you would like to talk through the requirements of this role contact the FIS by calling 0121 707 0077 or emailing info@thefis.org. The success of new entrants to the sector and therefore the longevity of the skills is reliant on dedicated competent assessors.

Visit the Skills Hub

The hub provides information on sector careers, apprenticeships and funding, as well as access to e-learning, CPD and other training. It brings together details of courses specific to the finishes and interiors sector, making accessing and booking training quick and easy.

Click Here

An Hour to Skill – new resources developed by leading businesses to support personal development

by Oscar Venus | 18 Jan, 2021 | Skills

The Department for Education has launched ‘An Hour to Skill’ campaign which aims to encourage employers and the nation to set aside just one hour a week for online learning by taking a free course from The Skills Toolkit.

Although this is primarily focused on encouraging people to develop for their next step in career progression, employers may wish to take advantage by using these free courses to train existing employees. Statistics show 94% of employees stay at a company longer if there is investment in their individual career development. At the time of writing there are nearly 90 courses available.

These high-quality, online courses aim to enhance individuals’ job prospects, giving them easy access to skills that could unlock job opportunities in a competitive market, or help them get ahead in their current role. The Skills Toolkit features more than 70 courses designed by some of the nation’s leading businesses and educational institutions including Amazon Web Services, Cisco, FutureLearn, Lloyds Bank, LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft, The Open University and many more.

Learn about:

practical maths
computer essentials
personal growth and wellbeing
professional development
business and finance
digital design and marketing
computer science and coding

The courses form part of the government’s Plan for Jobs, which aims to help boost the UK economy as it recovers from the impact of COVID-19.

FIS has created a dedicated resource to help companies within our sector source training. As well as our active network of Approved Training Providers, through the FIS you can access a range of Continual Professional Development (CPD) and eTraining to support development of people and demonstration of competence.

Visit The Skills Toolkit here

FIS launches new career and competency pathways to support drylining and ceiling fixers

by Clair Mooney | 14 Jan, 2021 | Building Safety Act, Drylining, Membership, Skills

FIS has launched two new Career and Competency Pathway documents for drylining and ceiling fixing occupations. With a focus on quality and safety within the sector, the pathways show how individuals can show proof of competence by the achievement of training and qualifications.

Through the FIS Skills Board and support for the ongoing competence work as part of the Grenfell Industry Response Group activities, FIS has a renewed focus on developing the principles outlined in the FIS Competency Framework (SAKE) which measures competency through a combination of skills, attitude, knowledge, experience.

The new career and competency pathways map the qualifications and training available against the critical stages of a career in drylining and ceiling fixing occupations. It provides a spine of information to help individuals and organisations to understand which steps to take and whether an individual is ready to progress through a better defined “gateway” to the next stage of their career. The pathway is aligning trained and assessed outcomes that support progression within the occupation, through to supervisory and management roles.

Commenting on the launch of the pathway, FIS Skills Board Chair, Paul Leach of Stortford Interiors said: “The aim of this work is to provide a better-defined pathway built around clear job roles and the stages within a career in key occupations within our sector. It will remain fluid and we can adapt it as new competency standards, qualifications and guidance emerges, but we felt it important to make a start to both support companies in managing competencies and help to present careers within the sector. The publishing of these pathways is a vital and clear rally call to the sector as we seek to improve competence within the workforce and address any skills shortages.”

FIS Skills and Training Lead, George Swann added: “Many are already well on this journey and undoubtedly there will be subtle differences within individual companies. But, by providing this standard pathway we can help all contractors and employers to understand what good looks like, benchmark where they are at and hopefully support a better culture of training and development through the sector. We often talk about skills and competency and default to a conversation about card colour, but a genuine focus on competency is much more than this and involves ongoing learning as well as effective supervision and management and providing support and encouragement for individuals. Having an organisational training plan supports social value requirements which are now prominent in contracts.”

The pathways are designed to be adapted by individual companies in-line with roles within organisations. FIS is working to provide more detailed standardised job descriptions to further support a consistent approach to career management within the industry, and developing pathways to cover all the core occupational areas associated with the Finishes and Interiors sector.

You can download the Career and Competency Pathway documents for Drylining and Ceiling Fixing occupations here

For further information or for any questions and comments please contact the FIS by email at info@thefis.org or call 0121 707 0077.

FIS Updates Guide to Taking on an Apprentice

by Iain McIlwee | 12 Jan, 2021 | Main News Feed, Skills

In light of latest changes and new support through the Government’s Plan for Jobs, FIS has updated the FIS Guide to Taking on an Apprentice. This simple guide is designed to support businesses in taking that vital first step in taking on an apprentice. It sets out to introduce companies to the raft of support that is available to them and to understand what their options are.

FIS Skills and Training Lead commented “Taking on an apprentice will ensure the succession of the current workforce. This FIS guide is designed to help and support employers through the apprenticeship process, but the main message is that FIS are here to help at every stage. With new restrictions on immigration and tightening in requirements to demonstrate competence in construction, it is more than ever vital that businesses in the finishes and interiors sector look to apprenticeships and traineeships to attack any emerging shortage of skilled workers.

There are encouraging signs with additional financial support from Government, growing interest from training providers in the new Interior Systems Installer Apprenticeship in England and activities like BuildBack and KickStart coming on stream to support recruitment and new entrant development. But all of this will be in vain if companies and employers don’t rise to this challenge and invest in the home population.”

The guide is free to download from the FIS website here
More information on the CITB backed FIS BuildBack programme
More information on the Government backed FIS Kickstart programme
For all information on FIS Skills Support click here

New competency standard – have your say

by Clair Mooney | 5 Jan, 2021 | Building Safety Act, Main News Feed, Skills

We would like to hear your comments on a new competency standard that will be published this spring.

Government through the Ministry of Housing Community and local Government (MHCLG) have commissioned the production of a new competency standard (BSI Flex 8670 Built environment – overarching framework for building safety competence of individuals – specification).

This new standard will be used to produce specific standards for new roles listed in the Building Safety Bill and will form an overarching standard that will allow organisations such as FIS to produce competency standards for operatives in our sector. We see this as an opportunity to ensure that operatives installing safety critical products can measure their own competency, be recognised for their competency and have training available to progress their careers.

Objectives
This BSI Flex is intended to achieve four overarching objectives:

Set core requirements for behavioural and building safety competence for all persons working in the built environment in order to improve industry culture and safety outcomes throughout the building life cycle.
Drive adoption of consistent good practice in the development and use of competence assessment frameworks across the built environment.
Enable consistent and objective evaluation of different sector-specific competence frameworks against common criteria by regulators, clients and employers.
Support development of suitable mechanisms to provide robust assessment of individual competence.

The draft standard can be downloaded here.

Please send your questions and any comments to JoeCilia@thefis.org no later than midday on Thursday 28 January 2021 to be included within the FIS response.