Mark Holden Erin Kelly
We work for the housebuilders and do their aftercare,
predominantly plastering but also tiling,
painting, joinery, anything that they really want that we can subcontract out.
We need people who are reliable when it comes to customer care, maybe a little bit older in age and with experience as they need to be able to deal with customers.
It is quite difficult, because we rely on a set number of staff even though they’re subcontractors. You can’t just ring the contracts managers and get the trades from site because you need to know that they’re going to create the right impression.
We advertised recently as we looked to expand, and we got replies from graduates and people doing nuclear physics at uni.
That gave me the impression that because of the pandemic people are looking for any work, rather than something specific and that’s not necessarily helpful in our position.
People bring in their children or their nephews, we’ve even got nieces and daughters now starting on site.
Ian McDonald There is double demand, in terms of the need for tradespeople on site and a shortage of trainees.
In some places we’ve recruited candidates and tried to place them with colleges or training providers, only for them to turn some of our learners away because they haven’t got the staff to cope with the numbers coming through.
There’s definitely an issue in terms of encouraging and attracting people into the sector because construction isn’t necessarily seen as an attractive industry.
One of the big frustrations I have is making those influencing young people aware of the opportunities that are there and the chance for career progression.
It’s often the people in the background, the parents and the teachers, that have the misconceptions of the industry, and they’re potentially guiding their young people away from it into other areas. It’s a hearts and minds thing. We’ve got to change that perception across the board, and we’ve got to present it as
a professional industry. It’s also raising people’s awareness of the importance of housebuilding and construction.
We also need to make people aware of the transferrable skills. There are people that could come from other sectors or who may be in school or college training towards a particular direction but some of those skills could be transferred into roles within construction.
If the government had a national advertising campaign about trade apprenticeships, the benefits and the rewards, and how that can progress right the way through to managing director level, that would be fantastic.
We just need to train more people, don’t we? That’s what we plan to do.
The problem we’ve got is the rates for tradespeople keep increasing. It’s difficult to keep people without paying them through the roof, which in turn then goes on the job and puts it massively over budget for everyone.
Some of our best skilled people have been with us for 20 to 30 years. We have people who started working for us when they were young and they’re now bringing in their relatives and that’s how we train them up.
That’s the best success we’ve had. We’ve got around 300 people working for us, so there a lot of relations.
The other problem we find at the moment is material costs. Everyone is having their margins squeezed, so eventually everybody is working for less. So, something will have to happen.
Claire Shore
We do need to train more people. The pinch point for us is having the skills trainers that we need, because we are all looking for the same people.
Industry specialists are looking for these people to be operational and strategic in their business and we’re looking for them so that they can train the next generation.
It’s the same pool of people and whilst the industry needs are so tight, that’s having an impact not just on our college,
but right across Lancashire and across the north.
We are consciously working with individuals to support them whilst they train to be trainers and still work in the industry.
That’s probably our biggest contribution, helping professionals make that transition to be teachers and trainers of the next generation.
There is also a lack of understanding of the sector that we have to work to fix. Our approach to that is to work with schools, employers, students, sector bodies and training associates.
We’re proud to be investing in people
Get in touch to find out more about our range of opportunities in home building.
Visit:
persimmonhomes.com/jobs/apprenticeships
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