National Apprenticeship Week and the Woodworking Industry’s Challenges

Dave Campbell, BWF Marketing & Training Manager

This week is National Apprenticeship Week. Coincidently (or not), it is also National Career Week. Both of these weeks is the opportunity to both reflect on the great work the woodworking industry does to bring in new talent, but also look at the challenges that face us – as an industry – to bring in new talent, qualify them, and keep them developing throughout their careers.

BWF members have one of the best reputations for taking on apprentices compared to other construction industry industries, with just shy of 250 apprentices last year. This is only apprentices that are through the CITB managing agency, so we know there will be more within our membership. It’s even more impressive when you compare us to the specialist construction industries and the timber industry as a whole.

We shouldn’t see that as a put down to these other sectors. We've had a headstart with qualifications avilable in the mainstream, I have the pleasure of working with many organisations across the specialist and timber sectors who are working very hard to both encourage new talent into their professions and set up apprenticeships and qualifications where they previously haven’t existed. We must use our situation to both impart our best practice and work collaboratively with the wider industry and so that we – as woodworkers – don’t become complacent about the importance of taking on new talent.

Our Wow I Made That! campaign which aims to widen awareness of joinery industry careers – but the scale of doing this requires more than a joinery industry campaign. We must work with the rest of the timber industry to give us real momentum in a competitive environment to reach this audience.

We are working with the Wood Industry Board and the Timber Accord – made up of employers and trade associations from the timber industry – to widen the scope of this campaign to all of wood. We are also looking to join up the dots, so to speak, with ProSkills’ schools programme MakeIT! Wood to make the biggest careers promotional campaign our sector has ever seen. If successful, we’ll have lots of interest in apprenticeships in our industry.

Referring back to the BWF membership’s apprentice figures, it’s important to note it was also 250 the year before, but a whopping 550 in 2011. At the time, that equated to an average of one apprentice per BWF member. But that means a halving of apprenticeship numbers in just one year – and now that the economy is showing signs of sustained improvement, we need stronger apprenticeship start numbers in 2014. That’s where you, as industry employers, come in.

We need apprenticeship places for our promotional activities to really take effect. We need to be able to sign post to the vast amount of places we have to offer. In fact, CITB research suggests that the wood trades needs to recruit over 4,000 people each year to 2018 to meet projected demand. We need to play our part to reach this target and continue to see apprentices as an investment in our businesses for growth.

We also need to make a commitment to see growth in training of our workforces. There are a whole host of grants available through CITB, and the WITForum will be announcing fresh grants for qualifications and other training for BWF joinery manufacturers in the coming weeks. And don’t forget, not all training costs – our Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme provides each company and individual a framework for continuing development throughout each of your staff’s careers.

So in these National Apprentice and Career Weeks, lets all make a commitment to all play our part in bring in new talent, getting them qualified, and develop our staff throughout their careers.

If you're doing anything for National Apprenticeship Week or National Careers Week, please let us know.