Member Article

Esh Group promise 150 apprenticeships over next three years

Regional construction firm Esh Group will take on and train 150 apprentices over the next three years across its North Eastern, Cumbrian, Yorkshire and Scottish operations.

The firm is launching the ‘Esh Academy’ - a vehicle to train the next generation of Esh employees - with the first cohort of 50 apprentices starting the scheme this summer.

Earlier this month Esh announced widespread recruitment across all of its business functions and the Academy will now train apprentices at a variety of academic stages.

The apprenticeship scheme has grown from Esh’s ‘Building My Skill’ programme in schools, which aims to equip whole year groups with expert advice from guest business speakers.

Brian Manning, Group chief executive of Esh Group, explained: “We’re now looking to add real ‘bite’ by offering traineeships and jobs to some of the youngsters who successfully come through our already very effective employability programmes which we deliver with our business partners.

“We believe the offer of jobs is a massive incentive for students and really highlights the importance of preparing themselves for employment – and the excitement and reward of being offered and getting proper employment.

“We hope our business partners will join forces with us and take on board this approach and that we will be able to extend the opportunity to the work we have done with ex-offenders and social enterprises such as Changing Lives.

“We’re looking to expand our graduate training and traineeship programmes. We want to introduce potential leaders and senior leadership programmes as well as up-skilling our existing workforce.

“We already do a great deal of workforce development – and we’re now looking to run this work alongside. Esh Academy is an excellent way of joining up all of our work in this area.

“This scaling up will enable closer relationships to be built between our operational areas and colleges and other training organisations. We aim to make the training more bespoke and to open it up so that subcontractors and other members of our supply chain can take advantage too.

“Once we get this operational then we can - as we always do - look to keep raising the bar and pushing it out.”

Esh Academy will be managed by Esh Training Solutions, the training arm of Esh Group.

Tricia Mullen, manager of Esh Training Solutions, has been laying the foundations with colleges, training organisations and all Esh Group companies to establish their current and future recruitment requirements.

She explained: “Esh Academy students will be part of the Esh Group family. They can be school students, university students, in part time or full time work and may be at a range of different academic stages. Business partners, suppliers, subcontractor and families of staff can become involved.

“Esh Academy will operate across all the regions where Esh Group operates.

“There’s a selection process to follow which will vary depending on the academic stage - school students for example can start by being taken into the ‘Esh Academy Talent Pool’ and then progress onto traineeships, training contracts and employment. We’ll also offer traineeships with trial periods – to see if it works.

“We have a huge variety of opportunities available - from construction roles through to finance, administration and support – Esh Group has a massive range of different jobs needed to deliver its work. Site based work ranges from pipe layers or general operatives through to technical roles in quantity surveying and engineering.”

Access and entry into Esh Academy is by application and a selection process. Anyone interested in knowing more about Esh Academy opportunities can find information and a list of current apprenticeship vacancies at www.eshjobs.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .