“Dave stood out from the rest of the shortlist by engaging with areas of the community being overlooked in the employment market. Dave’s diversity vision has led SkyBlue to be viewed as a recruitment industry leader in the field of diversity and equality.”

The judges of the Institute of Recruitment Professionals’ Awards 2009 on why the Best Contribution to the Community Award was given to SkyBlue’s Skills and Diversity Manager Dave Massingham.

 

We hold Jobcentre Plus’s Two Ticks award for our commitment to hiring and supporting disabled employees.

 

 

 

 

Congratulations!
100% pass rate for 35 SkyBlue rail workers from the Duddeston depot who studied for their Level 2 qualification in Permanent Way (Rail) Maintenance.

“Our partnership with Jobcentre Plus, and the training we provide as part of our Skills Pledge Plan, support our strategic objective to attract, develop and retain excellent people by becoming an employer of choice

Dean Smith, Head of Carillion Academy, Carillion plc

 

 

“While the issue of youth unemployment becomes more serious and the national number of apprentices in the sector falls, we are continuing to provide opportunities for young people to obtain the skills and qualifications they need to prepare them for work.

Ray Wilson, Director, Carillion Training Services

 

 

As resident training provider for the King’s Cross Regeneration Project, Carillion provides learning opportunities for up to 150 local apprentices and around 100 unemployed local residents every year.

 

 

In 2009 69% of our apprentices achieved a full construction apprenticeship framework, broadly in line with the national average rate for our sector. More than half (58%) achieved this within recommended timescales, which is significantly ahead of the sector national average.

Training and development

We aim to attract, develop and retain excellent people by being an employer of choice.

Attracting excellent people

Each year Carillion hires thousands of people. This includes approximately 1,500 new apprentices, 200 graduates and an increasing number of recruits through our partnership with Jobcentre Plus (around 450 in 2009). Jobcentre Plus helps people on benefits find work and provides particular assistance to those with the greatest barriers to employment, for example the long-term unemployed. We hold Jobcentre Plus’s Two Ticks award for our commitment to hiring and supporting disabled employees. Our recruitment business SkyBlue has established partnerships with organisations that specialise in helping diverse groups into employment. These organisations, including Remploy, Training for Life, Pertemps and NET Ambitions, support those with disabilities and ex-prisoners, among others. This has resulted in SkyBlue receiving the Recruitment & Employment Federation’s Diversity Assurance Standard for the last two years. Through our bursary scheme in conjunction with the Construction Industry Training Board, we also help students who would otherwise be unable to afford a university place.

Providing a diverse and discrimination-free workplace is key to our attractiveness as an employer. We also see the value that a diverse workforce brings us as a business: we live in a diverse society and reflecting that in our workforce helps us understand, and meet the needs of, our customers. Our Equal Opportunities and Diversity Policy states that every Carillion employee should be treated equally, regardless of their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability or religion. In Carillion MENA, we are working to increase the proportion of local people in our operations. In 2009, 29 claims of discrimination were made by our UK employees, all of which have been addressed in accordance with agreed internal procedures.

Increasingly, sustainability is an important factor in Carillion being seen as an employer of choice. Recognising this, we make information on our sustainability programme publicly available on our website and include it in all employee inductions. For those on our graduate recruitment programme, part of their induction is spent looking at safety and sustainability issues. This includes practical activities, such as helping out at Wildlife Trust projects.

 

 

 

Developing excellent people

Carillion is committed to supporting the training and development needs of all our employees. In doing so we help to address national skills shortages, create competitive advantage through our capable workforce and encourage employees to stay with Carillion by investing in their individual development. In 2009, we invested approximately £20 million in training and development programmes. All employees are supported to identify their development needs through regular appraisals which include personal development plans. We also ask for feedback on all training provided, through both end-of-course forms and general feedback channels such as the Great Debate.

We have made a Skills Pledge Plan as part of our collaboration with the Learning and Skills Council’s National Employer Service. In this, we commit to actively encouraging and supporting employees with no formal qualifications to gain the skills and training that will aid their future employability and meet our business needs. Pledges like these form part of the UK Government’s strategy to develop a skilled and flexible workforce. In 2009, we were awarded our first national contract: to deliver Level 2 National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) in our rail business. Since April 2009, 265 of our people, many of whom had no previous formal qualifications, have registered as learners, with 99 achieving their first qualification. We aim to deliver 1,000 Level 2 and Level 3 NVQs in 2010, in supervision, construction operations and rail maintenance.

In July 2007, we launched a national partnership with Jobcentre Plus. Since then, it has continued to grow and provide opportunities for those who are furthest from employment and without any qualifications to achieve both. In 2009, our target was to hire 250 people through the partnership and we actually hired 453. Jobcentre Plus is now our largest provider of operatives, with an average of 230 jobs per month advertised in Job Centres across the UK.

 

For our managers and future managers, we provide various programmes to support their development. These include:

• > Power of Engagement, which supports our leaders to achieve excellence in engaging with, and managing, their people
• > our management stepladder model, which has enabled over 5,000 current and potential managers to map out their development paths
• > the Carillion Leadership Programme, which is open to all employees and which identifies, and fast tracks the careers of, emerging leaders
• > Futures Network, our programme to support networking and the development of broader business knowledge, again open to all.

Employees are also trained in ethics and sustainability issues.

Carillion Training Services

Through Carillion Training Services’ 18 construction training centres across the UK, we provide courses not only for our employees, but also for the wider community. In fact, we are the country’s largest private provider of construction training for young people, employing over 2,500 construction apprentices at any one time. Apprentices can learn a range of trades from painting and decorating to site carpentry. They are supported by apprentice supervisors who oversee their development and help them find long-term employment. Jobs may be found with Carillion, one of our subcontractors or one of the many small construction companies with which we partner. By training more apprentices than we need for our own operations, we contribute to the employability of local communities and support the future of the construction industry. The Carillion Construction Apprenticeships Charter commits us to maintaining a continuous level of 250 apprenticeship placements in Carillion businesses and our supply chain.

The recent economic downturn led to over 4,000 construction apprentices across the UK being made redundant across the industry in 2009, with the industry’s apprentice recruitment rate falling by over 30% in the same period. Despite the downturn, Carillion has not made any apprentices redundant and we have maintained our recruitment at a similar level to recent years. We have also developed some innovative solutions to employing, training and progressing apprentices that will help the industry when levels of work return to normal.

Carillion Training Services works closely with a number of community organisations to provide training for unemployed and disadvantaged groups such as those not in education, employment or training (NEET) and the longterm unemployed. We have developed these courses in partnership with The Prince’s Trust, the Rank Foundation and Local Authorities to help clients in these groups become ‘work ready’. A typical two-week course covers core skills such as bricklaying and paving along with key health and safety requirements, and culminates in the achievement of a Construction Skills Certification Scheme card, which helps participants gain work in construction. In 2009, we delivered 19 courses to 258 people, a little fewer than our 2008 performance of 23 courses for 315 people.

In 2009, Carillion spent £26m on training apprentices and the unemployed, which included significant support obtained from UK Government agencies and Construction Skills’ levy and grant schemes to help offset these costs.

A 2009 survey of Carillion apprentices established that around 50% secured employment or further education on completion of their training.