Shining the spotlight on apprentices

While most employers put the focus on apprenticeships during National Apprenticeship Week every year, we want to shine a light on them all year round!  Here at Dunhams, we believe that apprentices and trainees are such an integral part of our business, they deserve to be recognised on an ongoing basis.

Attracting, developing and retaining the next generation of skilled people is not only important for us as a business, it’s really important for construction as a whole. We all know about the labour crisis we’re facing in the sector.  According to the latest report by the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), 225k additional workers will be required to meet UK construction demand by 2027. That’s 45k workers per year. It’s a big ask, but we need to start somewhere and Dunhams are proud that we’re already playing our part. Working with local colleges, we are committed to bringing two new apprentices every year, but in order to do this, education, communication and promotion are really important. We try to get in front of school and college leavers to tell them what an attractive, diverse and vibrant sector we have and the type of opportunities available, the transferable skills on offer, earning while you learn, and the value of having a trade to set you up for life.

We believe embarking on an apprenticeship at Dunhams, offers people one of the best starts to their careers. Senior management have come from that route, coaching and mentoring is taken seriously, and most importantly of all, we look after apprentices properly.

But don’t just take our word for it! We spoke to our two apprentices, Larry Rossall, and Electrician Apprentice Level C-Appr-L3 Inst Main Elec (C-Appr-L3 Inst Main Elec)

and Harvey Pipe, Business Administration Apprentice.

Larry comments: “I went to 6^th form and was dead set on going to university, but by the time I finished I felt I no longer wanted to stay in a school type system.  I wanted to get out and work, but still learn.  I really enjoy the learning side of things & going to college.  We get assessed at college and our head of apprentice will come and check our work and keep in touch with Dunhams.  I work for a really good team who support me on any of my assignments or day to day topics.  I have everything I need throughout the day as there is always some in the office for me to call.  All the Sparks help me, and I have one day at college to break the week up and have ongoing feedback from my sparky.  I would 100% recommend an apprenticeship as you get the best of both worlds.  It gives you the time to know what you want to do and learn whilst you earn. I would hope to stay in Electrics as feel that it’s the future but may branch out.”

We had a not to dissimilar story from Harvey: “I hated college, I had not picked the right course so decided to look on Indeed, just to check for jobs then saw the advert for the Business Administration role, applied and within 2 weeks I was lucky and got the position. The whole team is here to support me on any of my college work.  They are a great team of people and really inspire me.  I would really recommend apprenticeships and I would hope that I can secure a permanent role at Dunhams, as I really enjoy talking with the tenants and service providers, it makes me feel like I’m making lots of friends”.

Kinovo Group plc – Jobs – Find a job, build a career (kinovoplc.com)