In an initiative designed to attract newcomers to the fenestration industry, the education company Building Our Skills has teamed up with apprenticeship experts Learning Skills Partnership. Building Our Skills plans to offer a range of apprenticeships run by the Learning Skills Partnership in the business areas of trade supply, accountancy, customer service, administration and project management. They hope that the trade supplier apprenticeship, ideal for those operating a trade counter, will be of particular interest.
John Ogilvie, Building Our Skills’ director, explained: “I think we would all agree that the growing skills gap in fenestration extends to non-site-based roles. The truth is that the industry has not done enough to publicise the fantastic range of career pathways it can offer. What we want to do is offer fenestration industry employers better access to newcomers from all disciplines, offer them learning programmes, and encourage them through other offerings such as our training academy and GQA’s extensive list of industry-relevant qualifications. We’d like them to commit themselves to this industry and forge their careers here in the long term. Working with the Learning Skills Partnership will help us to achieve these goals.”
Simon Alsop, Learning Skills Partnership’s managing director added: “We, Building Our Skills and its partner organisation, GQA Qualifications, are all committed to the principles of learning, people development and qualifications as multiple means of raising business standards and addressing skills shortages. It has become clear that these are common goals in a challenging time, and I am delighted that the apprenticeships we can offer will help to promote and drive this agenda. What we can offer additionally is a recruitment service for employers – a one stop shop of finding them the right people locally based to their business, the right apprenticeships for the employee’s skills and the employer’s needs – and help with accessing the funding to make this a really cost-effective solution for bringing newcomers into the industry to fill gaps, and develop their careers.”
