Dan Nicholls utilised the tools and guidance offered by the IET’s Professional Registration Engagement Team, “Our schemes performance improved dramatically since we started working with Lucy in the PREM team”.
Dan Nicholls currently works as the Engineering Early Career Development Leader at GE Aerospace Defence and Systems, where his passion for developing people and putting his excellent coaching, leadership and communication skills to work.
Seeking Accreditation
Back in 2013, GE Aerospace Defence and Systems started their Professional Development Scheme Accreditation with the IET. “We sought out IET Accreditation because we were getting lots of students who were asking about it and as a company it’s important to benchmark against other organisations whilst receiving feedback on best practices for a graduate scheme”.
“Our apprentices and graduates have benefitted from the IET Accreditation service by developing a much more structured and stepped approach towards Professional Registration”.
When the Professional Development Scheme Accreditation first began for Dan Nicholls, he reflected on the number of candidates who were waiting to the point where they were ready to apply for Chartered Engineer (CEng) status.
“Now, in our IET Accredited Scheme, our candidates are working from Engineering Technician (EngTech) through to Incorporated Engineer (IEng) and we’ve got a much higher success rate going on to become a Chartered Engineer (CEng)”.
This plan was encouraged and put together by Lucy Byrne, the Manager of our Professional Registration Engagement (PREM) team.
Receiving invaluable guidance from the PREM team
In the last 3 years, Dan Nicholls received invaluable guidance and support from Lucy Byrne in our Professional Registration Engagement Management (PREM) team. “Lucy has been key to getting us to where we are now. She’s very good at holding us accountable for things that we agreed to do”.
The number of scheme participants who are continuing to Professional Registration has “increased dramatically”.
A detailed stepped approach has been introduced for graduates, where all apply for Engineering Technician (EngTech) at the start of the scheme (if not already achieved), and then apply for Incorporated Engineer (IEng) by the time they have completed the scheme. This approach has also been introduced for Engineering Apprentices.
“Lucy is very good at suggesting how we can motivate members to put the focus they need into Professional Registration.” Dan also goes on to say “she has been there to help us by making sure we’ve got our Professional Registration Advisors (PRA)s ready and that the PRA’s are getting comments back in a timely fashion”.
With the support of the PREM team, Dan Nicholls is able to keep track of where the candidates are with their application to achieve a Professional Registration status.
The feedback that comes back from candidates’ interviews has “got more actionable items around it” which helps Dan to interpret the feedback received and identify patterns to then help provide relevant and timely feedback to the scheme applicants.
Looking back on success
GE Aerospace Defence and Systems has seen their scheme applicants achieve a higher success rate of Professional Registration due to the IET Professional Development Scheme Accreditation and support from Lucy. “We’ve also had monthly calls with the IET” – this has helped to make sure a quality-assured pathway for their engineers is provided at all times.
“We really try to hang all our schemes on the Professional Registration process and whilst we’ve always tried to do that – with Lucy’s support, we have managed to make that a reality”.
Dan Nicholls describes the IET Accreditation as a “painless process” as the feedback received from the IET through the original accreditation and the re-accreditation is absolutely invaluable for improving your scheme.