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NETWORK / 31 / DECEMBER 2016/JANUARY 2017 How important do you think apprenticeships are? I'm a great believer that you learn as much on the job as you do in the classroom so it is absolutely vital. I love bringing in young people, we do this at undergraduate level, post-graduate level, as well as professional school. I think if you get a young person into the organisation, not only do they learn the practical skills, but they learn the culture of the business, and a good culture in a business is worth its weight in gold. How do you achieve that culture? You need to create a culture of learning that goes all the way through from apprenticeships to management. A lot of businesses will spend a huge amount of e• ort training their sta• , and I think it's very important that we do that, but management forget to train themselves. You need to achieve corporate governance in an organisation. If you have that, the blood in an organisation is always learning, that's the one thing that in the old days they didn't really realise, that because the world changes, because of RIIO, with environmental management, with health and safety management, you have to make sure that you are always prepared to learn. What training have you undertaken personally? For our sta• we do obviously train them on technical elements and aspects, health and safety quality management, environmental management, as these are the big drivers in our industry. But where are the drivers for our management? What I ended up doing is a leadership course. I did something called the Chartered Director quali… cation. It's like an MBA but it's much more practical. It basically teaches you processes and principles which is exactly what health and safety management is about, exactly what environmental management is about, but through the chartered director programme I ended up having much better disciplines and much better processes. What message do you think it sends to sta• if management doesn't undergo regular training? It sends out a message to our sta• that its only good enough for you, it's not good enough for me, and I think that's poor. It's all very well preaching to your sta• , but it's got to be with the senior management as well, otherwise why would they believe you. If you take our industry, it is constantly changing, I have to learn how to adapt and modify and meet it. It is growing and vibrant and interesting. We are coming to the Brexit world which is going to be di• erent, but the fact that I am always learning and my sta• are always learning means we should be able to ride it through. "It sends out a message to our staff that its only good enough for you, it's not good enough for me, and I think that's poor." Ian Dormer is the manag- ing director of Rosh Engineering, a specialist contrac- tors to the electrical supply industry. Read more from Dormer about why the time is now for high voltage equipment on Net- works.online Q & A I A N D O R M E R Q & A

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