{"id":867676,"date":"2025-08-24T21:12:36","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T02:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/24\/we-solved-our-skills-crisis-by-investing-100000-in-young-talent\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T21:12:36","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T02:12:36","slug":"we-solved-our-skills-crisis-by-investing-100000-in-young-talent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/24\/we-solved-our-skills-crisis-by-investing-100000-in-young-talent\/","title":{"rendered":"We solved our skills crisis by investing \u00a3100,000 in young talent"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Martin Smith is chief executive of metal fabrication company The HEX Group<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

For decades, the construction industry has had a people problem. And now the workforce is ageing, it\u2019s only getting worse. More people are leaving the industry than joining it and businesses are feeling the brunt of this trend. Thirty-one per cent of construction employers say their number one headache is finding suitably skilled workers. It\u2019s a familiar story in engineering too \u2013 one we\u2019ve been dealing with for years.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve brought in 200 young people, many of whom are now in senior roles\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

At my business, we hit this problem a while ago. And the truth is, our quick fixes didn\u2019t work. We knew we had to go long term: grow our talent, start earlier and change the way we talk about jobs in engineering. <\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just about protecting your own business. If we don\u2019t get serious about this as a country, we\u2019re going to stall major projects, drag down productivity and continue to hurt the wider economy.<\/span><\/p>\n

In engineering, we didn\u2019t wait for the industry to sort itself out. We went straight to our local schools and colleges to find our future talent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, that\u2019s not new news for construction. But here\u2019s the difference: we didn\u2019t just show up with a goodie bag and a PowerPoint \u2013\u00a0we built an entire team to support our school and college partnerships, nurturing future talent right from the get-go. We hold real conversations about real careers and counter the outdated views of \u2018dirty\u2019 engineering jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n

But we get it \u2013 school leavers today have tons of choice, so we leave nothing to chance. The gap between open days, work experience and actual real-life career choices is the danger zone. We ensure that we\u2019re part of that conversation, engaging parents as much as their children. If we don\u2019t guide potential talent, the PR machine for higher and further education will typically take over.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fifteen years ago we took on our first apprentice and haven\u2019t looked back since. We\u2019ve brought in 200 young people, many of whom are now in senior roles, and today our apprenticeship programme is a vital part of our business.<\/span><\/p>\n

In it for the long haul<\/span><\/h3>\n

Getting young people through the door is only half the battle. The hard part is keeping them. That\u2019s why we invested \u00a3100,000 into our Centre of Excellence at Bri-Stor Systems. It\u2019s a proper training facility with a structured approach, mentorship, and a clear path from apprentice to manager.<\/span><\/p>\n

If construction wants to hold onto recruits, internal training programmes like this or strong links with external providers aren\u2019t optional \u2013 they\u2019re essential.<\/span><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t just a big-business issue. As an SME, we feel it even more. That\u2019s precisely why we launched a managed apprenticeship scheme last year: to take the admin burden off smaller firms and help them make the most of apprenticeships.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we want a strong pipeline of skills across the whole industry, we\u2019ve got to support everyone, not just the companies with big HR teams and deep recruitment pockets.<\/span><\/p>\n

This industry doesn\u2019t need another report to tell us it\u2019s got a problem. It just needs a shake-up and the commitment of people at the right level to make a difference. It won\u2019t happen by accident. We\u2019ve seen it work. We\u2019ve invested. And as a result, we\u2019ve built an engineering business that young people flock to.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\n Contributor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Martin Smith is chief executive of metal fabrication company The HEX Group For decades, the construction industry has had a people problem. And now the workforce is ageing, it\u2019s only getting worse. More people are leaving the industry than joining it and businesses are feeling the brunt of this trend. Thirty-one per cent of construction<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":867677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38937,22871],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-867676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-skills","8":"category-solved"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}