Apprentice Experience; Jordan and Nathan Visit Herga

During the summer, we opened our doors to welcome Nathan and Jordan, two of the apprentices currently working at our sister company Variohm Eurosensor.

Nathan and Jordan needed further experience in order to complete their NVQ, they were able to experience departments and job roles which Variohm were unable to offer due to the nature of the business.

Departments, Job Roles and Tasks to Enhance the Apprentice Experience.

Jordan and Nathan were placed in; Sales, Purchasing, Quality, H&S, Engineering, Operations, Stores, Despatch, Mould Shop, Maintenance and the production line. In each department, Nathan and Jordan were able to shadow our employees to experience what each role was like.

Jordan says “I thoroughly enjoyed working with each department and employee that I came into contact with whilst I was there, they made me feel very welcome and were very helpful in teaching me the specific processes that they go through for the manufacture/aid of manufacture for those products"

Having spent some time in different departments at Variohm, this was an eye opener for them to show how the different companies operate. We are a manufacturer whereas Variohm was a distributor but now has on site manufacturing.  This was an opportunity for the Apprentices to discover how a manufacturing company works.

Nathan says “It was fantastic to see the way plastics are moulded and also the way in which the business works.”

Visiting Herga enable both Nathan and Jordan to complete a unit of their NVQ whilst gaining valuable experience, this unit would have been difficult for them to complete at Variohm. We are happy to have been part of this process for them. 

Jordan says “It was a great experience as it served as a multi-purpose visit; giving me valuable knowledge in the Manufacturing side of products and allowing me to complete many units of my apprenticeship criteria just from the vast variation in what each company does.”

One of the tasks we gave to Nathan and Jordan was to submit designs for what will be our new innovation pod, their ideas have been taken into consideration, and it was great to have their input to the project.

Edward Charlson our Operations Director comments; “As part of our Group wide commitment to increase the spread and share of our staff development commitment for the future, it was a pleasure for Herga to have both Nathan and Jordan here for a combined 6-weeks period over the summer. This was not only to support their NVQ programme in Engineering, it was also an opportunity for Herga to see the raw conceptual and visionary talent of our Group’s future in design engineering. We gave them a project to develop an “Innovation Pod” as part of our own ambitions in becoming “the interface solutions partner of choice”. Their ideas ranged from Astroturf flooring, to samples being mounted behind smart glass for brain storm sketching, floating blackboards and hanging hammock seats. They certainly exceeded the brief given and to a professional standard we will now practically and commercially consider”

Apprenticeships are something that we are considering offering in the future so it was useful to us to have Nathan and Jordan here for a visit. We glad to hear that they had a great time and we enjoyed having them.