COMMENT Journey’s Beginning O


ne’s working life is rather like a bus journey. You get on at the beginning, you get off at the end when you’ve got to where you were going. Sometimes, though less often in modern times, that bus journey is a direct route, sometimes is a bit more circuitous: you get on and off the bus, or take a different route. Eventually though, the journey ends when we retire (or, you know.)


However, with every person who gets to the end of their journey, we need to have another one to replace them at the beginning, more or less. How do we ensure that there is a healthy throughput of new people coming into the industry, learning and developing their way through? It’s tricky, as there are so many other options these days. Other cosier, more fun sounding options – talk to any bunch of year 6s and year 7s – and they might like the idea of being gamers, beauty artists, computer programmers or – shudder - Instagram stars and influencers. Not many of them, say, they want to be roofers, builders’ merchants or kitchen designers.


As we’ve written about a lot in BMJ, there are plenty of people who realise this, and who are working to try and do something about it. The Maddie Rose Campaign, the Construction Youth Trust, Go Construct, run under the aegis of the CITB, all aiming to open up the sector, to showcase its potential for building worthwhile rewarding careers to those who may not have realised it. The Builders Merchant Federation has also been working on this issue, with a far-reaching advertising campaign due to be fully launched sometime in the Spring, aimed at bringing the building materials industry into the forefront of the minds of those who might be thinking about career paths and progression.


One of the issues, and this is something that the BMF is also involved in trying to overcome, is


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EDITORIAL Group Managing Editor: Fiona Russell Horne 01622 699101 07721 841382 frussell-horne@datateam.co.uk


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how the building materials sector, like the wider construction industry, has always been seen as male-dominated, and not, if you like, ‘for girls’. Once you get into it, of course, you soon realise that there are plenty of roles where no-one cares what you look like on the outside, it’s who you are inside and how well you do the job that matters. So, the Construction Inclusion Coalition, launched at the BMF’s Annual Members Day Conference is a really timely initiative. Research that the Coalition conducted showed some alarming results, that only 2% of women would choose construction as an industry that they would feel welcome in and that only 36% of people would feel confident that females would feel safe and respected if they joined our industry. Things have changed in recent years, but slowly. 30 years ago, it wasn’t unusual for me to be one of a small handful of women at an event that was, otherwise, overwhelmingly male, middle-aged, middle-class and white. That is by no means always the case today, although women still only make up around 15% of the workforce across the construction sector. Ethnic minorities, according to the CIC, are only 6%, and that’s something the Coalition also intends to try and tackle, though they are starting with gender diversity first. Why is a diverse workforce important? Because with diversity comes breadth of experience, of opinion, of ability. New thinking, or, sometimes, old thinking, but expressed in a way that’s more attuned to the modern way of working. If we don’t do our best to widen the appeal of the sector, the industry bus – to shoe-horn the analogy back in – could end up empty, back at the depot while the world’s moved on to jet-packs. BMJ


Fiona Russell-Horne Group Managing Editor - BMJ


“


Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself.


Walt Whitman


CONTENTS 4 Newsround


The news from around the industry 9 News Extra


Heidelberg Materials is the new global brand for Hanson Cement.


10 News Extra


Covering the latest news from the BMF Annual Conference


14 People Who’s moved where and 10 Minutes with…


17 Business Helpdesk How does the latest employment legislation affect you?


19 Viewpoint


Our industry commentators look at issues ranging from how to open a new branch successfully, to ensuring customers understand their insulating requirements, ,and a tiered approach to products.


24 Merchant Focus Specialist builders’ merchant Strukta explains its processes


26 Timber


Analysis on which timber to recommend to whom


28 Transport


Insight on the latest transport innovations 30 IT


Analysis on how Footprint in merchant showrooms has opened a virtual opportunity


32 Bathrooms


The difficulties and opportunities the bathroom industry is facing


34 Industry Voice


The BMF’s own pages bring you all their news 36 Product News


Latest products and developments from suppliers


38 And Finally News and the prize crossword


Supplement BMJ Industry Awards Who won what last month


October 2023 www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net 3 ”


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