Analysis

Building Lives. Interview with Sian Workman for National Apprenticeship Week

For young disadvantaged people, finding a career in the construction industry really can be a life saver.  Sian Workman, managing director of charity Building Lives, explains.

KPMG Building Lives

You hear a great deal about passion and commitment in the construction industry. Sian Workman, managing director of charity Building Lives, certainly embodies this outlook.

Building Lives, based in south London, has a clear vision to (as the name suggests) build lives by providing the opportunity and the skills to find a career in construction. 

“I left school at 15 with no qualifications and I grew up with what you might call not the easiest of upbringing. But work saved my life,” she explains.

“There are no pre-requisites to joining the programme – age doesn’t matter – you just have to be unemployed. We will teach you but you have to be there every day – even if it snowing – it’s a very simple work ethic.” Sian Workman, Building Lives

“I realised that there were so many kids who also just needed hope and a chance. They had failed their GCSEs and literally thought that that their lives were over because that is the message that is often given at school,” she says. 

The construction industry, she explains, can really help to change lives. People can – and do - start at the bottom and work their way up to become managers, chief executives or company owners. It’s also practical and creative so doesn’t always require an academic background to succeed.

The charity was set up by Steve Rawlings, founder of roofing contractor Lakehouse Contracts, in 2010 and its first academy established in Camden was aimed specifically at finding and training young disadvantaged kids in the area. 

Four years on there are seven Building Lives Academies across the capital and thousands of young people being introduced to life changing – often life saving – careers in construction. 

This article first appeared in KPMG's latest Focus digital app for infrastructure building and construction which is now available and tackles the pressing issue of skill shortages in the industry. To download the app click here.

Each of its seven academies is a partnership with a social landlord – be that a local authority or an arms-length management organisation. Through these partnerships the charity finds, trains and places apprentices to fulfil whatever roles that the partner and its supply chain has available.

“We employ all the apprentices ourselves then we place them through contractors and subcontractors’ supply chains,” explains Workman. “It is about helping contractors to bolster the skills available in their supply chain by offering training and helping them to meet their obligations under Section 106 to provide local labour.”

At the heart of the charity’s work is the ability to empower local people and businesses and to make a difference by forming productive partnerships that truly make things happen and change lives. 

Workman started her career working as an administrator in the social justice sector. She worked her way in to project management roles and then found herself delivering one of the Greater London Authority’s first payment by results projects working with 18 and 19 year olds to get ex-offenders into work.

“In principle everyone gets it but in the commercial reality of the day to day work it is hard to deliver training,”

It was high profile, tough but hugely successful. The biggest challenge, she explains, was overcoming the fear of asking companies to take these perceived “risky” employees.

As so many of the young offenders wanted to work in construction, Workman formed strong bonds with the sector and when the GLA project finished, Rawlings snapped her up to drive Building Lives. 

“It made me realise that all these kids needed was a chance. If they knew they could find a job then they would probably not have offended. I realised, perhaps because of my own upbringing, that I could make a difference,” she says.

And so now Workman is doing just that. 

Building Lives has added three more academies to its portfolio recently and has plans for another six to open in 2015.  

Currently it has 150 people on apprenticeships and each year this number is bolstered by around 80 recruits on pre-apprenticeship training - of which around 50 continue onto full apprenticeships. As such around 300 individuals are now working with the charity at different points in their training.

“The most rewarding thing is that I see people all the time who were just like me – who left school without qualifications, didn’t know what to do but who are now inspired to succeed,”

The model is to first form a partnership with a social landlord who will typically donate space for the academy on a peppercorn rent for five years. After securing funding from skills funding agencies and from industry, the charity has to convert the space so that it is appropriate for learning, then find the students to take part and tutors to run the courses.

“We invest in recruiting and have canvassers who go out into the community to find students.” She explains. “There are no pre-requisites to joining the programme – age doesn’t matter – you just have to be unemployed. We will teach you but you have to be there every day – even if it snowing – it’s a very simple work ethic.”

Of course they also have to find the businesses to take on the apprentices – increasingly a challenge due to pressure on the smaller firms to deliver contracts rather than invest in training. 

“In principle everyone gets it but in the commercial reality of the day to day work it is hard to deliver training,” she explains. “Everybody is under pressure to deliver faster and cheaper so it is hard for firms to invest in training. For us the challenge is to ensure that young people finish their apprenticeships as, while it is good the firms want to take on staff, we don’t get funded if they don’t complete their training.”

To deliver her ambitions for 2015 Workman has a big challenge ahead raising the £500,000 to £1M needed from donor and sponsors. But, as she points out, every one of the numbers going through the academies is a life changed, so worth all the effort.

“The most rewarding thing is that I see people all the time who were just like me – who left school without qualifications, didn’t know what to do but who are now inspired to succeed,” she says. “It is so great to see and I love it.” 

This article first appeared in KPMG's latest Focus digital app for infrastructure building and construction which is now available and tackles the pressing issue of skill shortages in the industry. To download the app click here.

 

National Apprenticeship Week

A series of blogs by apprentices to highlight their experiences will be published across the week by the Technical Apprenticeships Consortium. Visit the TAC website to find out about their experiences and the ACE website to read their blogs.

If you would like to contact Antony Oliver about this, or any other story, please email antony.oliver@infrastructure-intelligence.com.