46
DEBATE SKILLS
Real funding. Real deals.
Real decisions. Growing a business, planning an acquisition, or exploring investment? This is where you’ll learn how funding really works.
IN ASSOCIATION WITH:
Steve Bell Pierce
Martin Emmott Rosebud
PRESENT:
Richard Slater, Lancashire Business View (Chair) Sarah Allen, Panache Cruises Kamil Gradowski, Affordable Windows Group Emma Guthrie, Addison Group Sarah Hall, Blackpool and The Fylde College Maisie Lawrinson, Tangerine Group Josh Morrison, JR Roofing Laura Taylor, Holiday Inn Chris Waddington, Helical Technology
Derry Green Secret Garden Glamping Ben Smith Kingsley Asset Finance
Date: 17 June 2026 Time: 08.30-11.00 Venue: Village Hotel Blackpool
Brought to you by: Express your interest here In association with: Supported by:
WORKING TO MAKE TRAINING RELEVANT
Skills and training. Vital subjects, they remain high on the agenda for companies of all sizes in all sectors. With the support of Blackpool and The Fylde College we brought business leaders from a range of industries to its Bispham campus to share their views.
How easy is it for you to get hold of the skills and the training that you need?
CW: We don’t find it difficult to recruit assembly workers but we always struggle when it comes to ‘skilled’ staff. One reason is our location and in the next five years we are going to face the challenge of an ageing workforce.
We do a lot of training in house. I once heard a bit of a cliché, ‘that you recruit for attitude and train for skill’ and to a degree, that’s what we do.
We do have a couple of apprentices. I came from an apprenticeship background. We look
at adult apprentices because we tend to find it difficult to bring younger people in.
LT: We’re quite lucky. There are lots of training and development plans available. For apprenticeships, we’ve got great links with the college here. And we benefit from being an internationally branded hotel, along with having a management company. When it comes to training, we have a lot of avenues we can go down.
I know everyone still refers to it, but Covid did hospitality no favours. That skillset we had pre-pandemic has gone. We’ve lost a good calibre of frontline hospitality skills.
SA: Our product needs a certain skillset. We sell luxury, ultra luxury, and expedition cruising. We call our salespeople cruise connoisseurs and they craft the experience for the customer.
They need confidence and to be able to relate
to people. We do recruit a lot of younger people, so we’ve invested a lot in apprentices. We tailor our training to our people, it is all very face-to-face, very much hands-on with roleplaying and that kind of activity.
Sometimes they are not prepared when they come straight out of education. It can be a big learning curve. It is those soft skills rather than anything else. We recruit in line with our values and train for everything else.
EG: We work with Blackpool and The Fylde College and we have apprentices. But we are a subcontracting business and we needy ready- skilled people. We also train from within.
We will bring on semi-skilled people and train them. It is about them being work ready. When it comes to a 16-year-old moving from school into a manufacturing environment, we are stretching them, but we work closely with the college.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
