Zzeus Training shortlisted in prestigious Skills Awards 2024

Celebrating their tenth anniversary this year, the Enginuity Skills Awards bring together leaders from the UK’s engineering and manufacturing industries, who gather to celebrate the best talent and those organisations actively championing skills development in order to ensure a bright future for what are vital sectors in the UK’s economy.

In 2024, the ceremony will take place on 5 June in Birmingham in parallel with Smart Manufacturing Expo at the NEC, which runs during the Smart Manufacturing and Engineering Week.

Zzeus Training has been shortlisted for the Training Partner Skills Champion Award in recognition of the company’s significant contributions towards helping mature fire alarm engineers demonstrate their competency following new fire safety legislation introduced post-Grenfell.

Building Safety Act

The Building Safety Act 2022 highlights the requirement for duty holders to ensure that they are using competent fire alarm engineers. This means that, for the first time, and regardless of the number of years they’ve spent in the industry, fire alarm engineers must obtain an industry-recognised qualification and subsequently hold an ECS Fire, Emergency and Security Systems (FESS) Technician Gold card or an ECS FESS Systems Operative card.

At the time, an apprenticeship was the only way in which to obtain a Gold card. This left the experienced workers at a considerable disadvantage over new apprentices entering the industry. Due to their financial commitments and families, they could not complete a formal three-year apprenticeship. This left them at risk of being ‘out-qualified’ and placed on the ‘scrap heap’.

In 2023, Zzeus Training tackled this problem head-on and fought the case for mature workers. This was a challenge, as the company had to find a way in which to comply fully with the FESS apprenticeship standard, the ECS card requirements and the recommendations that emerged from Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety.

Zzeus Training worked heavily with Andy Reakes, director of growth and development at the Electrotechnical Certification Scheme, who listened to – and understood – the issue and worked with other stakeholders to find a solution.

Meeting the requirements

Belfast-based college SERC was running a vocationally recognised qualification for its apprentices in Northern Ireland. It was discovered that this could be adapted for the experienced workers in England.

As such, Zzeus Training collaborated with SERC lecturer Robin Hamill over six months. There were many visits to Belfast, meetings with Andy Reakes and the apprenticeship working groups. Eventually, they decided that the EAL Level 3 NVQ Diploma in Providing Electronic Fire and Security Systems would meet all the requirements of the FESS apprenticeship standard.

The next hurdle was to ensure that Zzeus Training’s facilities met all of the requirements of the EAL NVQ. This included all staff taking the auditor and IQA-regulated qualifications. Andy Reakes and his team from ECS then worked to assemble a solid and robust method of ensuring that if learners completed their NVQ with Zzeus Training, EAL could issue the FESS Gold Technician card to experienced workers.

At the end of last year, an agreement was finally in place. This was a groundbreaking achievement. Zzeus Training launched its new NVQ for mature workers in December. The first four learners completed the NVQ, and Dame Judith Hackitt presented them with their NVQ certificates and the ECS Gold cards, duly commending Zzeus Training as “pioneers in fire alarm training”.

Significant journey

Tom Brookes, managing director and founder of Zzeus Training, explained: “It’s been a huge journey to get this over the line for the experienced workers, but I’m over the moon with the end result. I could not have done this without the collaboration of Andy Reakes, Robin Hamill and the dedicated team at Zzeus Training.

Brookes concluded: “Moving forward, our focus is to maintain the momentum and steadily expand the NVQ programme. We’re ecstatic to be shortlisted for an award for our efforts. With dozens of engineers already benefiting from our new qualification, we’ve already won the real prize.”

*Further information is available online at www.zzeus.org.uk