How We Train Our Staff
We Take Our Training and Education Seriously
Training our staff and keeping an environment of learning is essential to keeping our team and our business successful. Obviously, locksmithing has been around for a long time, and the industry has certainly changed. In fact, it’s changing more every year. We pride ourselves on staying on top of industry and product changes and are constantly revitalizing our talented employees with new training opportunities.
An unfortunate aspect of locksmithing is that it’s a very very difficult trade to get into. There’s no real formal program or trade school, and it takes a long time for someone to get to the point of being an independent road technician, so most locksmiths only hire experienced locksmiths. However, we didn’t take that for an answer. Our fifth of our five values is “Continuous Improvement”, and if we don’t grow the education of our staff, we are falling short on this.
Anderson Locksmith Apprentice Program
In 2020, we developed the Anderson Locksmith Apprentice Program. We try to find young professionals that are interested in a career change, and have the mechanical aptitude and focus to potentially take on a career as a locksmith. We have a regimented program that involved two to four weeks in the shop with our senior staff going through a robust agenda.
The agenda is unique to us, and something that we have orchestrated and improved after each and every apprentice. If they are unable to meet every checkpoint by the end of four weeks, this is probably not the job for them, and that’s ok. After the shop training is over, the apprentice typically spends between 8-12 weeks on the road with a senior locksmith technician.
It’s an enormous investment to get the apprentice up and running, but we are proud to show that we are between 70-80% success rate with new apprentices. The credit goes to the trainers and to the apprentices themselves. Once they have passed all of the road requirements checklists, it’s time to see how they can do on their own. Typically, our new apprentices don’t work on particularly difficult jobs right away and gradually move into them as their experience grows.
What about the Mid-Level Locksmiths?
We have a monthly training circuit that we hold ourselves. We change the topic and bring a different subject matter expert to each of these classes. The employees love this because, with so many senior staff that have been doing locksmithing, access control, and safes for 20, 30, and even 40+ years, we are fortunate to have experts in virtually every single category of locksmithing. It’s a trade that takes years and years to become proficient, as there are so many aspects to locksmithing and the types of problems we encounter.
What About Our Senior Locksmiths?
As you probably guessed, our senior locksmiths spend a large portion of their day training and teaching some of the less experienced ones. We are so fortunate to have many senior locksmiths that know all aspects of:
- Master-key systems
- Restricted key systems
- Cameras, card readers
- Safe manipulation and drilling
- Panic bars, door closers
- Automotive
- Digital keypads
- Door frames
- Commercial doors
