Last year, Ideal Heating Commercial won a coveted BESA award for Training Provider of the Year 2024. We have a long history of providing training, and recently have made a substantial investment in to our Expert Academy training facilities and expanded the type and breadth of our commercial courses, as well as now offering educational CPD seminars.
Our commercial product courses are delivered by dedicated Expert Academy training managers whose extensive experience and qualifications across the heating and gas industries provide our customers with invaluable insight and technical knowledge. Here we introduce you to two of the driving forces behind Expert Academy:
Andrew Johnson, Training Director for Groupe Atlantic UK, ROI & NA; and Andy Corrie, Ideal Heating’s Technical Training Manager.
2025 will see Andrew Johnson celebrating 20 years in training roles, although he started his career as a heating engineering. “I was 24 when I got to my first training role and I just liked seeing people have that light bulb moment, particularly in areas where they've struggled to understand something. I really see the value that high-quality training delivers from a performance perspective as well in terms of making people quicker and smarter at the roles they do. That's why I've always been involved with training in one way or another.” Andy Corrie, who has been in the industry 35 years, 14 of which have been in training, very much agrees: “working with clients, watching them actually getting hands-on and learning and absorbing information is incredibly rewarding.”
Andrew joined Groupe Atlantic in 2019, with Andy joining two years later. So why choose Groupe Atlantic and Ideal Heating? “I'd always aspired to work for a manufacturer” states Andrew, “and I was attracted to Groupe Atlantic as it’s a global group of companies that brings size, scale and opportunities. When I was interviewed for the role, it was clear they had real aspirations around training, wanting to expand their provision and serve their customers better, so it was a really good challenge to get involved with this at an early stage.” Andrew’s highlight to date at Groupe Atlantic was in January 2023 with the opening of a new National Training and Technology Centre in Bridgehead. “It's one of the key reasons I joined the company. It was over two years in the planning and all I thought about, dreamt of and worked on since the day that I joined the company really! It was the pinnacle of what we wanted to achieve and has served as our model of what we then wanted to create around the UK.”
When Andy joined Ideal Heating in 2022, the challenge to dramatically expand our training facilities was well underway: “I liked the fact that they were investing in the products and the people. They are a good company to work for. They look after their people. It's a very open, friendly environment.”
As Ideal Heating’s Technical Training Manager, Andy’s role is to design and deliver training packages, whether for new or existing products, or for wider industry training such as gas qualifications. The most recent training course he has produced is on the Evomax 2 commercial boiler, which has become our most popular, quickly followed by heat pump training. Andy has also been instrumental in introducing commercial heating training in to Scotland through our Dalgety Bay Centre of Excellence, designing the layout and deciding what appliances will be there and how to run the courses. “It was very well received with a high uptake from some major customers and some fantastic feedback, so I was really pleased with that.”
At the other end of the country, this year Andrew has been working hard to open our new Centre of Excellence in Luton, as well as overseeing a number of third-party satellite sites around the country to expand our scale and reach. Andrew also has an operation role, ensuring training is working well for customers, be it how enquiries are handled, bookings via the website, or ensuring Expert Academy trainers are where they need to be to deliver that training. He also plays an important role in developing new training courses within the team. “We’ve brought lots of new trainers into our team over the last four years” states Andrew. “Seeing them become successful, to start to develop their own courses from scratch, and receive fantastic feedback from customers really is the best part of my job!”
Andrew is incredibly proud of what the Expert Academy team has achieved: “I think we've got a very comprehensive choice of courses for all skill sets and all experiences. We've tried to get that full blend from the pretty much ‘I know nothing about something’ through to an expert who wants to enhance their skills. We've got some of the most comprehensive and therefore longer duration courses as well such as programmes up to two weeks long, whereas a lot of our competitors’ courses might be three days max. Furthermore, a core company principle is to make Expert Academy training as accessible as possible, so the majority of Ideal Heating Commercial training is provided either free of charge or on a very low cost basis, which we consider to be fundamentally important.”
Interested in booking training?
Commercial training is available through Ideal Heating’s BESA, BPEC and City & Guilds assessment Centres of Excellence at Bridgehead in Hull, Leeds and Dalgety Bay, plus the recently opened centre in Luton. All these premises have been completely refurbished to convert them into state-of-the-art training facilities, with Ideal Heating commercial product displays installed so attendees can get interactive, hands-on training. In addition to dedicated training centres, a special mobile Evomax 2 boiler rig takes training on the UK's number one commercial boiler direct to customers’ sites.
Go to https://idealcommercialboilers.com/training to discover our range of training and to book.
