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Retraining After Redundancy

 

Losing your job can be a real punch to the gut, but don't worry, there are always other paths to explore. Think of it as a chance to learn new skills, get a fresh start, and rekindle your career with the right support. At Access Training, we are here to guide you every step of the way, especially if you're thinking about switching to the trades after getting laid off.

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Retraining After Redundancy

 

Losing your job can be a real punch to the gut, but don't worry, there are always other paths to explore. Think of it as a chance to learn new skills, get a fresh start, and rekindle your career with the right support. At Access Training, we are here to guide you every step of the way, especially if you're thinking about switching to the trades after getting laid off.

More...

 

For many Educators, the decision to leave the teaching profession can be a difficult one. However, for some, it may be the right step towards a fulfilling and rewarding career in the trades.

If you’re an ex-teacher in the UK looking for an alternative career path, there are many job opportunities available. With a shortage of skilled tradespeople in the UK, there's never been a better time to consider this path.

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In Britain alone, on average 3.8 people out of every 1,000 employees are made redundant. This includes those who have taken voluntary redundancy because they found their job role was no longer significant. Therefore, throughout your training career, you’re very likely to find yourself retraining someone who has recently lost their job.

Redundancy is often likened to the grieving process or bereavement as it is an incredibly difficult time in someone’s life. Especially if someone has been in their job for a number of decades, losing that responsibility can leave a person feeling completely lost and displaced.

Retraining someone who has been made redundant requires a different training approach to the usual student. Here are our main training tips to consider when retraining the recently redundant.

 

1) Assess the needs of your students


Before you start your training plan, it is important to fully grasp what they want to achieve through the training course. Do they want to go back into their old line of work? Do they want to develop skills in a new field?


If you’re in a class full of people who have recently been made redundant but want to improve their skills in their past industry, you should structure your training plan around them. It would be a wasted effort to go over information your students already know.


2) Ensure you provide office hours


Those who have recently been made redundant will appreciate the opportunity to talk to you on a one-to-one basis. Office hours are the best way to provide this support and will also help you understand your students on a personal basis.


The more you learn about your students, the easier it becomes to train them. For example, if someone worked for many years as a tradesperson prior to their redundancy, they will most likely have expert knowledge of that industry and have many transferable skills that will help them with their training.


3) Include Interactive Training techniques


This popular method of training is used in most classrooms and with good reason. Interactive training is the best way to motivate your students to stay engaged. While you may be tempted to plan your lessons around fitting in masses of information, it is important your students are actually paying attention.


The interactive training technique involves breaking sessions up with quizzes, demonstrations, case studies, group discussions and Q & A sessions. These short breaks help keep students involved in the lesson and will provide those with past experience the opportunity to share their knowledge. This technique works with all members of your class, including those who have been made redundant.

 

4) Use the Motivational Interviewing method


As you can imagine, redundancy can largely damage someone’s confidence. They may have taken up retraining to help them feel confident in their abilities again.
Motivational interviewing is a good method of evoking a positive and motivated response from your students. The steps to take when using this method are as follows:

  • Engaging – establish a relationship based on trust and respect between yourself and your student.
  • Focusing - using an ongoing process to maintain direction.
  • Evoking – encourage confidence in your student by using their own goals and motivations to inspire your training.
  • Planning – create a plan of action with the view to reach the students goals that you and your student commit to.

Motivational interviewing can be done in office hours or before lessons even start to help you fully understand what your student hopes to gain from this course. It’s one of the best ways to encourage your students by showing them you actually care. 


Always remember that anyone can be retrained but it takes a dedicated trainer to do an effective job.

Would you like to work with us here at Access Training? Get in touch today to see the jobs we have on offer! 

Train for a new career

Leaving your comfort zone behind and training for a new career can a very intimidating prospect, but if you've grown weary of your current role, it may be the best decision you ever make.

Here at Access Training, we specialise in career change courses for people who wish to learn a trade (such as plumbing or plastering) and make a living out of it. Our courses are designed for individuals with absolutely no experience or knowledge of their chosen trade, so even if you've never so much as changed a fuse or unblocked a sink, you can become a fully-qualified electrician or plumber within a surprisingly short period of time.

Here's a quick overview of what to expect when you train for a new career with Access Training Academies:

 

Industry-recognised qualifications

The key to starting a successful new career in any trade is gaining the qualifications that will mark you out as a qualified member of that particular field. Gas engineers, for instance, must undergo an ACS assessment and join the Gas Safe Register before they can start earning money.

The new career courses we deliver here at Access Training are specifically structured to get you the qualifications you'll need to succeed in your new role. Instead of researching which certificates and accreditations you need to seek out, you can simply pick a course package - like, for instance, our Professional Gas Engineer Course - and begin your training, secure in the knowledge that we've covered all the essentials.

 

Help from experienced tutors

All of our course leaders are qualified tradespeople with years of commercial experience in their respective fields. This means that they are perfectly placed to provide all the assistance and instruction you could possibly require.

Furthermore, we aim to keep our class sizes as small as possible, so you can rest assured that you'll have plenty of opportunities to talk things out with your tutor as you progress through your chosen training course.

 

Intensive training programmes

Our career change courses are designed to get you qualified as quickly as possible. Instead of signing up for an apprenticeship and waiting several years to become a fully-fledged tradesperson, you can get trained up in a matter of months and start your exciting new career right away. This is a great choice if you can't afford to take a loss of income as you transition from one career path to another.

 

Learn from the ground up

As mentioned above, our courses cover everything a professional tradesperson needs to know. Don't worry if you don't know the first thing about electricity - we'll start from the absolute basics and work up from there, ensuring that you get plenty of support as you learn.

Our new career courses comprise a finely-tuned combination of theory and practical work. We'll make sure you know everything you need to know about your new trade, but we'll also ensure that you leave with plenty of hands-on experience so that you're completely confident when you show up for that first paid job.

Ready to train for a new career? To find out more about our career change courses, contact Access Training today or choose from the options listed below.

 

New Career Training Courses:

Retraining for a new career

If your current job has become frustrating, uninspiring, or just plain dull, then it may be time to consider retraining for a new career. You can retrain at 20, 30, 40 and beyond - regardless of your age, it's never too late to change your path!

While lucrative careers that require no qualifications or prior training do exist, such opportunities are relatively few and far between, so it's generally a better bet to undertake some form of retraining before embarking on a new career path. The best careers to retrain for can take many forms: some people choose to go back to university, or even to a sixth form college to retake their A-levels. Others enrol on apprenticeships or vocational courses.

Of course, the best retraining route for you depends very heavily on what kind of career you're looking to pursue. Here are some of the questions you should be asking...

 

What career should I retrain for?

Typing 'best careers to retrain for' into Google produces all sorts of different answers to this question. One website tells you to become a chef; another recommends logistics, firefighting and air traffic control. There doesn't seem to be any real consensus as to what the best career path is, and while that's perfectly understandable - everybody is different, and one person's dream job is another person's nightmare - we'd like to make the case today for learning a trade and retraining as a tradesperson.

There are countless opportunities for qualified tradespeople in the UK right now. The government made house building a key focus of their latest budget, and if their targets are to be met, the country will need a lot more workers who are capable of building new properties and providing them with water and electricity. And that need is set to become even greater over the coming years - according to the Telegraph, the UK's construction industry workforce will decrease by 20 to 25% in the next decade. New, skilled workers are needed to fill that gap, so if you're weighing up prospective career options, getting into the trade could well be a very good retraining choice indeed.

 

Retraining options for budding tradespeople

The government's stated goal is to build 300,000 homes a year. Lots of different skills are required to construct a habitable modern home; bricklayers and carpenters will be in very high demand, of course, but so will the following people:

 

Electricians

Homes need electricity, and only a qualified electrical engineer can legally perform electrical installations. Why not retrain as an electrician with the help of Access Training?

Electrical training courses >

 

Plumbers

Homes also need water, and there are many jobs for a plumber to do within a house building project. Sinks, taps, baths, toilets, showers, dishwashers...the list goes on. We offer a variety of plumbing courses if you'd like to retrain as a plumber.

Plumbing courses >

 

Gas Engineers

Many plumbers choose to also train as gas engineers and join the Gas Safe Register, as this enables them to carry out a wider variety of tasks (e.g. boiler installation). This is a rewarding and challenging profession for people looking to retrain.

Gas training courses >

 

Kitchen Fitters

Professional kitchen fitters are required to have a strong grasp of numerous specialist skills, from measuring and marking up to cutting worktops and installing cooker circuits. Retraining for a career in kitchen fitting will provide you with lots of lucrative work, and might even come in handy at home!

Kitchen fitting courses >

 

Want to find out more about our best retraining options? If you're ready to start retraining for your dream career, please contact Access Training Academies today.

Resettlement Courses

Have you considered an army resettlement course?  

 
If you've recently left or are thinking of leaving the Armed Forces, the prospect of choosing a new career path can be quite a daunting task. This is why Access Training strives to provide as much support and guidance for ex-military personnel as possible, helping them to retrain and revive their career prospects with our army resettlement courses.
 
Whether you have previous skills to build upon or are looking to start completely from scratch, we provide a huge variety of army resettlement courses which allow you to progress into a brand new career! In the past we have trained numerous ex-MoD personnel, allowing them to build on the valuable skills gained throughout their military career, while also providing them with the tools needed to master their new, chosen trade.
 
We have plenty of resettlement courses that will suit you, and they are particularly useful because of their flexibility. With Access Training you can learn at your own pace which allows you to maintain your responsibilities to family and other work. By completing the course (in whichever timeframe suits you best) you will be able to start a career with stability and opportunity. 
 
The Access Training company directors are also ex-military, as are several members of staff, which really does put this issue at the heart of our work. This provides us with the knowledge and understanding regarding your circumstances, making it easier for us to guide your transition. 
 
Whether you see yourself as a plumber, an electrician or a gas engineer, we provide first-class training in all of these areas, as well as many others! With such a variety of army resettlement courses to choose from, your eyes will be opened to the numerous options available to you, putting you on the right track to pursuing a profitable and stable career. 
 
For more information about our army resettlement courses, contact the Access Training team today. We are more than happy to help you find a course that best suits you and your circumstances so please don't hesitate to get in touch today. 

100% customer satisfaction is one of the main things we aim for here at Access Training, so it always pleases us to hear feedback from our former students on their course experience and the training company as a whole. You can view some of the older testimonials we've received on this very website, but below is one we received via email recently:

"I recently completed six weeks of training at Access, which included tiling, plumbing and electric. This training has allowed me to set up my own property maintenance and domestic electrics business as well as join a Competent Person Scheme.

None of this would have been possible without the support and guidance of the excellent staff in Cardiff. Quite simply they are some of the most down to earth, knowledgeable and professional people I have ever had the pleasure to be involved with.

The whole set up is a fantastic learning ground, particularly for military personnel and I have since written to our regional training advisors within the RAF who deal with resettlement training. The transition to civilian life could have been dull and daunting, but it’s been quite the reverse and the staff are a credit to their respective trades AND the company as a whole.

Often the administration side of an organisation gets missed when it comes to thank yous but the staff were ambassadors, making the whole process both simple and cost effective.

Not only have I recommended Access Training to a number of colleagues I look forward to returning in the future to extend my electrical qualifications further."

- Dougie Bon (Retired RAF Squadron Leader)

If you would like to take the steps toward a new career in a trade, give us a call on 0800 345 7492. We offer training courses in electric, plumbing & gas, plastering, tiling, carpentry, bricklaying, decorating and more. Each will provide you with the necessary qualifications to achieve a successful and enviable career in your chosen trade. You are also welcome to come take a visit of our Cardiff training centre, so you can see first hand the facilities and quality of teaching that we offer.

Get in touch to learn more about our training courses!

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