BSEE


Terry Sharp, President of the Building Controls Industry Associaon (BCIA), provides an update on the Trailblazer Standard and discusses a potenal shi toward long term remote working policies.


Perhaps the one small consolation we can take is that we are getting used to these habits now and so it is not quite so much of a shock to the system as it was the first time around. Difficult times continue then, at least until we have made some decent headway into the number of vaccinations administered. Discipline and patience are therefore required once again in order to get through this current setback.


W


ell, here we are almost


approaching a year since the first UK


lockdown came


into effect, and I am sure I am not alone in feeling a little bit déjà vu. I am writing this the morning after Boris Johnson’s announcement that we would enter another full lockdown, with schools closing and people only travelling to work if it is unreasonable to work from home.


On the subject of patience, I am pleased to say there is good news from the BCIA in terms of the work on the BEMS Engineer Trailblazer Apprenticeship Standard, which has progressed at a rapid pace. Early last year we announced that it had been approved for delivery by the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education and the rest of the year was spent developing nine new courses. These will sit alongside the BCIA’s present six modules to form the framework of the Apprenticeship Standard. The development of these courses has been a tremendous undertaking but thanks to the efforts of everyone involved the 15 modules which make up the framework of the Apprenticeship Standard are now nearing completion.


INDUSTRY COMMENT: BCIA The Waiting Game


Thank you everyone who completed our survey recently to help us determine the number of potential trainees for the Trailblazer Programme – we had a great response and this information will be invaluable when we officially launch the Standard and open it up for Apprentices in our industry, which will hopefully be in Spring 2021. There is still some work to be done, but we are getting there so we would like to ask you to bear with us for a little while longer.


The BEMS Controls Engineer Trailblazer Apprenticeship Standard has been a long time in the making but good things come to those who wait! And waiting is something we all became accustomed to in 2020, whether it was waiting to go to a restaurant, play sport or simply to see a family member or friend again. As I touched on earlier and in previous columns, remote working very much became the norm for people who were able to do so – and there are already signs that this will trigger a longer term trend, with companies such as Google and Warner Music Group adopting flexible working policies. Siemens also announced that mobile working would become a permanent standard, both during the global


pandemic and beyond, enabling employees to work on a mobile basis for an average of two or three days a week, whenever reasonable and feasible.


Different businesses will of course know what works best for them, but with potential childcare and home- schooling issues to accommodate it would not be a huge surprise to see this kind of policy become more commonplace. Some people enjoy being early birds and get their best work done in the morning, others are night owls and are more productive after the children are in bed. The initial lockdown largely proved that employees could be trusted to work on their own initiative and produce results no matter where they were located or at what time of day. A permanent move towards remote working will obviously have repercussions for how commercial buildings are operated. Whatever the outcome, building controls will have a major role to play.


www.bcia.co.uk


8 BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER FEBRUARY 2021


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