One of the more radical innovations of the Stopcocks scheme for creating fully qualified, skilled female plumbers is for all
Self – employed female plumbing trainee
Stopcocks Plumbers to be self-employed from the beginning.
Many years ago when Stopcocks was Stopcocks Woman Plumber Hattie tried having an apprentice. It didn’t work.
One of the fatal flaws of the apprenticeship system for plumbers is that it depends on tiny companies to shoulder the educational burden of the entire construction industry. Tiny companies of one or two plumbers don’t have the time or skills to pass on knowledge to apprentices and trainees. When a trainee lucky enough to have secured a placement or apprenticeship hits a difficulty in a job she’s working on, her one-man-band teacher/employer doesn’t have time to allow her to work her way through to a solution and often doesn’t have the skills to teach her in ways that build her confidence.
Time restrictions mean that the experienced plumber/teacher/employer takes over and finishes the job.
We know this because when we talk to female plumbers, if they’ve had a year’s experience in a traditional company, they frequently tell us they don’t feel they know more than when they left college, their confidence is at an all time low and they’re often considering going back to the job they had before.
This even happened when Hattie took an apprentice. She didn’t have time to train and support her as she felt she deserved. Hattie realised that if she was to pass her knowledge on and support all the women contacting her wanting to become plumbers it had to be in a different way.
Having been providing telephone support rather than an emergency service to her customers for years she realised that she could combine this approach with specialist training and on-site supervision to trainee or inexperienced plumbers as long as they are self-employed.
As a rule, self-employment means going it alone; which of course is scary when all your training you’ve been told you must first work under someone else’s wing for several years. But self-employment with Stopcocks support is a very different matter.
As self-employed plumbers Stopcocks licencees are free to choose those jobs they feel capable of doing, which builds their confidence and means they don’t let customers down by biting off more than they can chew. However, they can also stretch their skills because they have help at the end of the phone.
This is not just an emergency service; Stopcocks Phone Mentoring is not just for calling in a crisis. Our plumbers call before they go out on a job so they can discuss what they’re likely to encounter and how to deal with it and then they can also call during the job and benefit from all the tips and support a plumber with over twenty years experience, dedicated to their growth and learning can give.
Also and also unique is the Stopcocks training designed to translate what trainees have learned in college into real life situations, providing additional understanding and support, plus on-site support for more complex jobs, meaning work doesn’t have to be turned away.
This is only possible because each plumber is responsible and accountable to herself and her own business and to her own customers and because each plumber earns for herself rather than drawing an apprentices wage (as low as £10 a day at last reckoning).
The combination of these support services mean that when Stopcocks plumbers work their way through a new situation, they work through it from beginning to end and when they complete the job, the learning is theirs and so is the growth in confidence.
Stopcocks Women Plumbers are all about collaboration, support and community this is what we mean when we say ‘in business for yourself, but not alone’.
For more about becoming a Stopcocks Woman Plumber make an appointment to speak to someone by calling 0800 862 0010
