Tonight, Emma Hewitt, Skills Lead/ Building Plymouth Lead and Morven Maclean, Construction Coordinator will be representing Plymouth City Council and the Building Plymouth partnership at the Constructing Excellence Southwest Awards being held at Aerospace Bristol. These awards are one of the most prominent accolades in the South-West’s built environment celebrating exemplary practices from across the region.
Whatever the outcome, Building Plymouth will be proudly celebrating this regional recognition for its innovative BPART – Building Plymouth’s Aspiring Rising Talent Network which is in the Finalist line-up in the Awards People & Culture category.
Launched in January 2023, the BPART network aims to bring together local apprentices and recent graduates who are working within the Building Plymouth network to enhance their training experience whilst helping to create new professional relationships.
BPART provides a free 12-month programme of CPD activity enabling both trade and technical apprentices at all levels and recent graduates to access structured workshops to support their development, increased knowledge of how the industry works and has created a strong network for peer support. The BPART initiative is an innovative and pro-active approach to motivating, developing and supporting new entrants joining the industry, whilst also helping to improve retention.
As an inclusive programme for local construction apprentices and recent graduates, it offers significant added value to their on-the-job learning.
Morven Maclean, Construction Coordinator who had the bright idea to set up BPART said: “Networking and building relationships are key to successfully working and progressing in the construction industry. BPART starts these conversations positively at the beginning of the apprentices’ and graduates’ career journeys, creating a new supportive and friendly local network for new entrants. The programme of monthly BPART workshop sessions is delivered in-kind by prominent construction employers along with sessions covering mental health and well-being, health and safety, leadership and teamwork, mentoring, and equality, diversity and inclusion. Regular site visits are organised so that technical apprentices/graduates are able to get hands on to see how their drawings and plans need to come to life, and trade apprentices are better able to understand the design processes that inform the build.”
Emma Hewitt, Skills Lead and Building Plymouth Lead at Plymouth City Council said: “We recognise that competence is critical for the future of the construction industry and recruitment of competent skilled people has been a long-standing challenge. We are working hard together in a coordinated way through Building Plymouth to tackle the recruitment and retention challenges and improve the poor image of the industry to attract a more diverse and younger workforce, as well as to support the transition from the current set of traditional occupations and skills to the new green, digitalised, modern methods of construction, and more productive competencies and jobs that the industry will need over the next decade. Increasing apprenticeship starts and completions, developing higher level and graduate level skills, along with the retention of these skilled workforce is a key priority and we know BPART is helping us deliver these overall ambitions with previous participants also acting as Building Plymouth ambassadors, supporting with careers events.”
Good luck to the Building Plymouth team!!
Comments