Chris Proffit, business sector manager – construction and decoration, Mirka UK, sat down with Professional Builder to discuss the importance of training and up skilling.
The dearth of new talent across multiple sectors is creating many challenges, not least within the construction and decorating sectors. Skills are the lifeblood of the industry, enabling businesses to provide their customers with the requisite services they demand.
In conjunction with the required skills, companies are looking for the right tools and products to allow them to conduct the required jobs professionally and efficiently, leading to good productivity. So whether they are a one man band or a large group, the importance of training has never been more paramount for businesses.
As tools and skills evolve training programmes ensure that the people that undertake them develop the requisite skills and knowledge, which, in turn, will help them meet the constantly changing demands of the job.
At Mirka we want to innovate the training options that are available to the industry as a whole and this is achieved through our experienced technical team constantly liaising with customers to understand their needs and requirements. This information is collated and then when training is requested we customise our offering to ensure the business can reap the benefits in the short, medium and long term.
With training, you also have to think about its location because it’s important that the attendees are comfortable in their surroundings. As a business, we have learnt that the more comfortable attendees are, the more engaged they become, which leads to more questions being asked throughout the day.
Our programmes can be conducted on site or at our training centre in Milton Keynes. For on site, the customer has the familiarity of their usual surroundings, which enables our experienced team to highlight how specific products or processes would work in an environment they are familiar with. When we take the training to the training centre participants can take part in classroom-based learning before having their hands-on experience with the relevant tools, abrasives and solutions.
On top of the large-scale training mentioned above, there is also the need for subtle training, and this comes when the technical team visits customers to showcase new abrasives or tools. These types of visits enable our team to showcase best practice, while using innovative products that make jobs easier and more efficient and will be an asset to the business.
In addition to the training we offer, we are also seeing customers using our products to train their apprentices. An example of this comes from Trevor Mangan, managing director of TJ Painting and Decorating Services. Trevor and his team use the Mirka LEROS-S, the tool has allowed the team to teach their young trainee Max a valuable lesson in terms of how tools assist them. The way they did this was by giving him a 1980s pole sander to use, so he could appreciate and understand how much of a difference Mirka’s tools make when it comes to the level of prep being carried out alongside the time saved, which then can be spent on other jobs.
Training has never been more crucial to the people involved in all aspects of construction and decorating. Working in partnership with a professional, committed company that invests in training programmes like Mirka will ensure businesses stay abreast of new developments and upskilling remains a key priority retaining good people helping industries grow and develop.
For further information on Mirka visit- https://www.mirka.com/en
