British Gas trainees and wages
- Thread starter bster
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Holy cows just think if they could all do the job right there would be no work for us.scatmanjohn said:
I didnt realise some were on that. Might have to send in an application
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tony i dont know about london guys but very few outwith london are making 37k with BG. the guys who are are a very small percentage and working their arses off.
like i say most are pulling down 28-30k without trying.
the final salary scheme was closed last year
like i say most are pulling down 28-30k without trying.
the final salary scheme was closed last year
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Agile said:
At the moment Tony it's still in place but unfortunately not for new starters....most leave with a cash in of accrued shares and a lump sum pay off with a nice little pension so they can have an easy few years before throwing in the towel for good.
is that why people with heavyweight's that just need the correct ventilation to take them out of AR are getting warning notices and a sales visit?nickso said:
N
namsag
Around my way 30k and above is the norm . Just by working there day off through the summer will give them over 3k more an quite a few work 2 of there days off. Mind you i was earning that with them upto ten years ago but the beauty of it now is that it most of it contributes to the pension... Mate of mine contracts to BG for servicing an he is getting 40k quite easily for the past 2 years an thats taking at least ten weeks of a year
Agile said:
They leave (I speak from first hand experience) because the working conditions are awful, to earn what Ollski gets you must say good bye to all social life, and they get fed up picking up the pieces from a team of 30+ engineers of which about 2 are capapable of actually doing the job.Thse that can actually do a good job and kow their stuff dont get any extra reward than those that dont know anything at all. this is just plain wrong.
I left bacause I felt i was jumping a sinking ship. They made so many promises to improve things but none of them came to fruit. i honestly believe (due to the fact engineers and customers are leaving in droves) that BG home services is not a viable business. It will fold soon (within the next 5 years) and i wanted to be set up and established long before that happens.
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Paul Barker said:
paul, i always took the opportunity to ask a customer if he wanted to bother spending the money on the vent upgrade on a old open flue or if he wanted to get rid of it for a more efficient and technically safer boiler. cant see anything wrong with that. most refused both the boiler replacement and vent upgrade and i had no option but to leave it AR. most BG customers expect the earth and they may well get it regarding the ventilation issue as i believe BG are eventually going to have to to it for free for a lot of customers simply to keep them on contract.
i dont think 28-30k is a lot for what a BG engineer has to go through...was certainly one of the major factors for me leaving.
harrogategas....i agree there are probably only 10% of the team pulling their weight but i dont believe its because they dont know what they are doing......most have had all ambition to do the job properly kicked out of them by the profoundly deaf and blind management.
from what ive heard BG are starting to rationalise some of its internal services....could be on its way to being sold.
I dont think the business would have much appeal if it lost the BG nametag which people trust.
Only today someone told me that "you cannot get anyone more professional than a BG engineer !"
I still think those salaries are really very good and I would have expected considerable job satisfaction for those working in smaller areas like Cornwall or Market Harborough where the customers see the same people regularly.
I think part of the problem is some of the people themselves who just say "this is the BG engineer" and keep their own names hidden. They dont personalise the service.
I always try to call 30 minutes before I arrive and as you all see I give my full name!!!
Tony Glazier
Only today someone told me that "you cannot get anyone more professional than a BG engineer !"
I still think those salaries are really very good and I would have expected considerable job satisfaction for those working in smaller areas like Cornwall or Market Harborough where the customers see the same people regularly.
I think part of the problem is some of the people themselves who just say "this is the BG engineer" and keep their own names hidden. They dont personalise the service.
I always try to call 30 minutes before I arrive and as you all see I give my full name!!!
Tony Glazier
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namsag
Harrogate agree with all you say but would put the figure of 2 per patch higher... About 7 years ago the company done an employee job satisfaction survey and the number of engineers satisfied was less than 15% if memory serves me right it was actually below 10% . These figures where sat on for over six with no attempt to address them or tell employees the results or how they where going to make things better.. This was at the time the first share save was coming out after becoming centrica with a lot of engineers making 35k to 45k profit on a 3 year investment... So management must have known a lot of engineers would walk away but done nothing... WHY..
My personal; opinion is there is more money to be made in selling new boilers , products and upgrades etc .Than repairing boilers on 3 star...When i left 3 of us left in about a month from the same patch with nearly 100 years of service between us. Very experienced engineers and very good at our job who could do every aspect of the job and repair the oldest to the newest of any type of appliance or system and install them. Which does not make the company any money in sales etc Not one person tried to talk us out of leavin
What we know have is a work force that has got rid of all it`s experience etc and is being replaced by people who are not trained to the same standard and never will be and also get a lot of sales training and are under a lot of pressure to sell and get the cr#p of the patch... where as an older engineer could repair a boiler. When the younger less experienced engineer says i cannot fix your boiler and you need a new one he is not lying and the company benefit by not paying out money under 3 star and make a fortune on the sale. Same as power flushing merely for seized anti-gravity valves,jammed trv`s an blocked cold feeds. Thus offsetting money spent on training the new brain washable recruits
My personal; opinion is there is more money to be made in selling new boilers , products and upgrades etc .Than repairing boilers on 3 star...When i left 3 of us left in about a month from the same patch with nearly 100 years of service between us. Very experienced engineers and very good at our job who could do every aspect of the job and repair the oldest to the newest of any type of appliance or system and install them. Which does not make the company any money in sales etc Not one person tried to talk us out of leavin
What we know have is a work force that has got rid of all it`s experience etc and is being replaced by people who are not trained to the same standard and never will be and also get a lot of sales training and are under a lot of pressure to sell and get the cr#p of the patch... where as an older engineer could repair a boiler. When the younger less experienced engineer says i cannot fix your boiler and you need a new one he is not lying and the company benefit by not paying out money under 3 star and make a fortune on the sale. Same as power flushing merely for seized anti-gravity valves,jammed trv`s an blocked cold feeds. Thus offsetting money spent on training the new brain washable recruits
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namsag
Agile . your example of market harborough can have up to 20 different engineers working in it , yes it`s a smallish town and could be done by about 2 engineers but it doesn`t work that way, it should but it doesn`t.. You can even have 2 engineers being sent to the same house on the same day but usually first engineer will alter this and get both jobs sent to him.
I left BG in October '06 to get a better base of the industry; I have worked the suburbs and when I left in central London... At the time of me leaving a neighboring patch lost 8 engineers in two weeks...
The working conditions for the company are appalling as someone else already stated; you are not given the time to do your job safely and I had the pleasure of a Technical Service Manager who was the same age as me and experience level as me come out and give me "sales advice" because I believe in fixing rather than selling... It's truly ludicrous...
Anyone wanting to get in the industry should go with the BG apprenticeship as you can walk into any other company once you have your ACS and a couple of years semi-supported experience.... But if you're good at it; get out there and work for some of the real companies trading in the industry; BG is a reputation not a leader IMO - But I don't want to lible; out of the 47 odd engineers on my initial patch I can safely say that 6 of them guys were gods; they taught me a lot; unfortunately 2 have since left and once again; unfortunately they was the ones actually supporting the patch and getting the work done and keeping the customers happy.
I my last few months I was handling everything from complaints to customers with nothing for over a week where so called engineers had capped off for some of the strangest of reasons... But there ya go... Rant over; back to stopping all the DIY disasters
And no; even on Engineers money; working my arse off to the regs; I never did see how anyone could hit the 40k mark without getting themselves independently registered and working out of hours for themselves.
The working conditions for the company are appalling as someone else already stated; you are not given the time to do your job safely and I had the pleasure of a Technical Service Manager who was the same age as me and experience level as me come out and give me "sales advice" because I believe in fixing rather than selling... It's truly ludicrous...
Anyone wanting to get in the industry should go with the BG apprenticeship as you can walk into any other company once you have your ACS and a couple of years semi-supported experience.... But if you're good at it; get out there and work for some of the real companies trading in the industry; BG is a reputation not a leader IMO - But I don't want to lible; out of the 47 odd engineers on my initial patch I can safely say that 6 of them guys were gods; they taught me a lot; unfortunately 2 have since left and once again; unfortunately they was the ones actually supporting the patch and getting the work done and keeping the customers happy.
I my last few months I was handling everything from complaints to customers with nothing for over a week where so called engineers had capped off for some of the strangest of reasons... But there ya go... Rant over; back to stopping all the DIY disasters
And no; even on Engineers money; working my arse off to the regs; I never did see how anyone could hit the 40k mark without getting themselves independently registered and working out of hours for themselves.
LOL - I had to laugh when I read this thread... up until 2005 I used to work for the IT division of Centrica (parent company of British Gas) and one of the last projects I worked on before I left was the Hestia Project
As they say on the Fast Show... "I'll get me coat"
As they say on the Fast Show... "I'll get me coat"
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