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Why we made boosting skills and opportunities for staff a corporate goal
Two years ago Plus Dane adopted targets for apprentices and work placements. Barbara Spicer explains why this is important
I’ve read a lot recently about developing early talent, encouraging people into the sector and generally seeing housing as a worthwhile career.
So I thought it timely to share how we put our money where our mouth is in terms of that agenda.
Two years ago our board adopted a corporate goal “to focus on our people based on the recognition that the strength and future quality of delivery is based on its staff”.
I thought it was a really bold move – adopting the development of our own people as one of our key objectives.
With it came a range of quite stringent new targets, including adopting a formal coaching approach to management and ensuring that 5% of the workforce would be made up of apprentices or student placements within the next five years.
To support that target we joined The 5% Club, a movement of employers focused on creating momentum behind the recruitment of apprentices, sponsored students and graduates into the workforce with an ‘earn as you learn ethic’.
Not everybody thought it was the brightest of ideas internally but the recruitment of our first cohort changed that – when managers saw the quality of the young people coming through, we employed not the 10 that we planned to employ, but 18.
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We recognised that to employ apprentices at any scale in a meaningful way would take much more than simply having them here four days a week and at college when needed. So we put in place formal coaches if apprentices wanted them, including the executive.
We trained managers and colleagues as mentors, giving staff new accredited skills, and we let the apprentices take time out of the day job to work together, supported by our programme team on corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects to help them develop a wider skill set.
“We trained managers and colleagues as mentors.”
To date we have lost only one apprentice – who fulfilled his childhood dream when he was accepted onto a pilot’s course. Not a bad attrition rate!
We’ve recruited 12 more apprentices, and just had our first graduate intake with our ‘Magnificent 7’ GEM graduates.
They have been here only a matter of weeks but already one of them has written a piece on homelessness for my weekly message to staff, which was just fabulous.
Between our apprentices and graduates we have an amazing, eclectic, lively and enthusiastic new cohort of staff who are lighting up the business.
Comments about them ranged from “they are the future – it’s our responsibility to develop their fresh talent. They keep us all on our toes!” to “they spread youthful enthusiasm and upwards pressure throughout the organisation – and ask the questions that spending so long in the sector we can forget to ask”.
These are people in whom we are investing for the future of our business, and our tenants.
We don’t want them to go elsewhere – we want them to be part of the fabric of the organisation. But it comes at a cost.
When we started a major efficiency drive two years ago, the board took the decision to double our organisational development budget, and our apprentices, no matter if they are 16, are paid the Living Wage.
We have opportunity costs associated with them – taking them out of the business for CSR work, taking time out of senior executives’ diaries on a regular basis to engage with them.
“I am 150% confident that it is absolutely an ‘invest to save’ strategy.”
We have got some things wrong and had to take the time to change track and absorb lost costs to make it better.
But I am 150% confident that it is absolutely an ‘invest to save’ strategy – figures from the Education & Skills Funding Agency demonstrate that 76% of businesses that employ apprentices say productivity has improved and 75% report that apprenticeships improved the quality of their product or service.
We’ve also hit our 5% Club target ahead of time – we’re at 5.05% already.
We are supported in our endeavours by Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram, who has asked the secretary of state for education for flexibility with the residual underspend from the National Apprenticeship Levy to address the growing skills shortages in our area; and to roll out gold standard and degree level apprenticeships across the combined authority area.
“We need to ensure that the widest range of skills and opportunities we can offer is seen as a critical part of the growth plan for our local economies.”
He set up a skills commission which has already completed a survey of nearly 2,000 businesses to determine their skills need and which will take further evidence from stakeholders to ensure that skills, investment and growth strategies are perfectly aligned.
He wants to focus on those sectors and specialisms that will be the foundation of our future economy. For me we should be ensuring that housing is seen as one of those sectors.
We need to act both individually and collectively as businesses, engaging with our metro mayors and local enterprise partnerships to ensure that the widest range of skills and opportunities we can offer is seen as a critical part of the growth plan for our local economies.
Barbara Spicer, chief executive, Plus Dane
