Employment agencies signal interest in apprentice recruitment and training
Members of the Building Services Engineering Employment Agency Alliance have confirmed that they have a key role to play in providing vocational training across building-services engineering.
This was the key message from a conference organised by the alliance and attended by its own members, representatives of major M&E contractors and the principal bodies involved in delivering training to the sector.
Opening the event, Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, the independent chairman of the alliance, explained that the purpose of the event was to emphasise the alliance’s role in promoting best practice and to identify how employment agencies might help plug the skills gaps that were already appearing in certain disciplines.
Delegates were encouraged to discuss employment agencies becoming involved in formal apprentice training and the ad hoc upskilling of adult workers to take account of new skills requirements and emerging technologies.
John Meadley, secretary of the alliance, comments, ‘We were extremely encouraged by the extent to which delegates demonstrated an open mind on the role of agencies in meeting the future education and training requirements of the sector. In particular, there was a genuine acknowledgement that they had a complementary role to play in ensuring the availability of a fully skilled workforce — and that this might even extend, in time, to direct participation in new-entrant recruitment and training.’
