Skills Support for the Workforce
South Devon College is part of Serco’s network of expert organisations chosen to deliver the SSW programme in the Heart of the South West. South Devon College provide training for South West-based businesses across a variety of areas. These include a wide range of vocational delivery covered by classroom and/or remote methods in; automotive and marine, fitness instructing, management and leadership, accounting and human resources. The college offers flexible learning solutions and quality assured advice and guidance.
Myles Fletcher is employed by South West Water as an Alarm Team Technician. Working a 24/7 shift pattern, Myles’ key responsibilities are to triage Scada alarms that announce from their networks and assets, helping to provide the level of service that Customers expect from their drinking and wastewater. Myles also provides stakeholder support for the welfare of field staff who Lone Work, monitoring South West Water's security systems and acting as a first point of contact to the emergency services.
South Devon College worked with Myles to indentify his training needs and, as a high flyer with management potential, it was decided that a Level 3 Award in Project Management would be a good training fit for him. Obstacles to undertaking the training were also identified and Myles' Line Mananger, Mark Webber, highlighted TIME as a barrier, given the demanding shift pattern that Myles works too. South Devon College tailored a flexible learning programme, whilst Myles and Mark revised his ongoing shift patterns so that time spent on course work could be forward-planned. To this end,a flexible approach was able to ensure that labour resource planning was not affected whilst Myle's upskilled.
Mark Webber reflects on Myles' achievement:
Myles has benefitted from the course by gaining knowledge, experience and awareness of project management. This gives Myles a development opportunity within our department to proactively project manage areas of continuous improvement, with efficiencies gained from our team. As a manager, this gives me added options to delegate work amongst my team.
Myles is a high performer amongst the team and eager to develop. This course gives him a platform to pick up further responsibilities and I’m looking to delegate further work to him. In terms of succession planning, I am aiming for him to become a future Senior Alarm Technician.
