Our Senior Leadership Team is guided by the company values of ‘honesty, reliability and professionalism’. We seek to provide an outstanding level of technical excellence and customer experience for our clients at every turn.
To achieve this, we need a team with the qualifications, skills, experience and wisdom to correctly diagnose, solve and remediate the infinite number of plumbing, gasfitting and drain unblocking problems that crop up… a team that can design, plan and implement complex projects… a team that is empathetic and will engage with our customers to understand the issue and keep them informed and satisfied from woe to go.
We have built our team up by following our preference is to ‘start them young’. By employing apprentices and then growing them through the business to become competent, confident trade professionals. Through our partnership with Masterlink, we are fortunate to be introduced to top-quality candidates for our award-winning apprenticeship programme. Our apprentices receive technical education in a classroom setting from our accredited vocational training providers. We monitor this off-site learning process, encouraging, providing resources and where applicable providing additional coaching and support.
Auckland Plumbers Group apprentices
However, the ‘engine room’ of our programme is on-the-job training. By working through a catalogue of must-have skills and learning situations, our apprentices are mentored by working alongside our experienced team of plumbers, gasfitters and drain technicians – their competence and confidence builds by the day.
It is often said that “you don’t really learn to drive until you are out on your own”. In a careful and very structured way, we believe that to be true for our apprentices also. Each apprentice is recognised as an individual and, as soon as their skills and confidence allow, they are equipped with their own vehicle, and head off into the big wide world (under supervision of course). They are supported with detailed briefings, site visits and virtual support on-site (phone and video calls). Most of all, however, they go to each job confident if they haven’t ‘seen it and done it’ with others, they can reliably call on their team to competently and professionally complete the task.
Tom Berkley
Our Apprentice Programme is headed up by manager Tom Berkley, our ‘Training Leader’. Tom was recognised as the ‘2022 Training Leader of the Year’ by Master Plumbers NZ at the 2022 New Zealand Plumbing Awards. Very fitting we say.
By creating a culture that respects learning and treating all colleagues with respect in a safe work environment, Tom’s apprentices are free to focus on their job, their learning and achieving their goals. They gain confidence, are focused and ultimately get qualified to ‘get on with it’. Recently a member of our team commented; “I would never have been the plumber I have become without Tom”.
All our apprentices know that they are integral to our team and are valued highly for their contribution and fellowship. They enjoy every part of team life and like all our team members are supported with any challenges they may be experiencing in work or life.