Is there any way your business can find the right talent in the current skills shortage and move on to the next level? Here’s how we solved this problem at the Bradbury Group, after struggling to find the right calibre of employee for years.
The Bradbury Group has grown significantly over the past half-decade and, as our business grows, so does our need for good quality technical staff. However, in years gone by, we were met with a shortage of qualified recruits when looking for suitable engineering candidates. This had serious implications for our projected growth levels, as we simply didn’t have the staff to accommodate any further development as a business.
As a solution, we decided to grow our own talent by establishing the Bradbury Engineering Academy in partnership with the local North Lindsay College. Six apprentices joined our R&D department in October 2014 and, in their first year with us, they were given a broad range of engineering training, before going on to choose a specialism. All six original apprentices have gone on to secure a permanent role with us, and two more apprentices enrolled in the academy this April.
Our advice to companies experiencing the same recruitment issues as we were would be to take on an apprentice. As they’ll be learning their trade with your company, they won’t have to ‘unlearn’ anything to get accustomed to your internal processes — something even a qualified engineer cannot offer.
Since the inception of our Academy, we have been left with a sustainable supply of engineers, all of which are becoming vital members of our engineering teams. Therefore, if your business is currently suffering due to the skills shortage in the engineering and manufacturing industry, then we highly recommend that you take the matter into your own hands by recruiting apprentices.
While it would be great to be able to say the current skills shortage is only a temporary blip, due to the way engineering is promoted to young people in schools, this problem is set to continue until changes are made to the education system. There still appears to be a stigma attached to the word ‘engineering’, despite the term encompassing many interesting and engaging career paths. Some schools simply don’t promote it as a viable career path, and the ones that do tend to be biased towards male pupils.
To make sure your business isn’t suffering from this for years to come, consider offering your own apprenticeship scheme to nurture talent and take your business to the next level.
