Championing young talent with apprentice roles

Lee Pashley, Managing Director at Fernco, sets the scene for a future that not only welcomes young people, but actively seeks them. Aaron Brown, from Leap Apprenticeships, and Jacob Pashley, Fernco’s first sales apprentice, also offer their perspective. 2022 was a massive year for us,” begins Lee Pashley. “We went through a significant rebrand and became Fernco and with that came an opportunity to really consider what our future looks like from a range of perspectives. The truth is, when you peel it all back, our success will be shaped around the talent and performance of our people. “If we take a step back, for anybody that tracked our rebrand campaign during 2022, they will know that the values we place around our people are what really defines us. To give that some context, we can all share the same technology, the same machinery, but it’s our talented, loyal team that bring the Fernco difference. “Whether that’s from an R&D and innovation perspective, customer service or sales – every person and every function shares the same commitment to bring authenticity to every interaction. The challenge for our business, or in fact every single business in our sector, is how do we attract, train and retain young people?” Aaron Brown from LEAP, the full-service provider of the Builders Merchants Federation Apprenticeships Plus scheme, is working closely with Fernco as it launches its commitment to deliver apprenticeships. “My own background was in the merchant sector with Travis Perkins and as I grew my own career to branch manager level, I could see the greatest threat to our industry was a lack of young talent coming through,” he said. “Today, my role with LEAP as a coach and trainer, working with some of the UK’s most progressive businesses supporting talented, young people entering the industry, is incredibly rewarding. “But from a pragmatic perspective, unless we do more to create training opportunities and career paths for school and college leavers, we’ve got a real problem on our hands. Companies like Fernco, seeing the bigger picture and investing in young people to bring through their own business, are going to reap the rewards.” Lee Pashley picks up the story. “I could wax lyrical about this subject and fill the entire issue on the subject of how we can make construction careers more attractive, a topic for another day,” he said. “But in truth, through apprenticeships we have a great opportunity to really explain to young people ‘how’ they can start a career. It’s one thing to say to a 16 or 18-yearold, “what do you want to do after school or college?”, but it’s an entirely different conversation if you can start it with “how do you feel about learning lifelong valuable job skills and earn a great wage at the same time?” “For the vast majority of young people, they’ve spent a decade or more in a structured learning environment and if we can ease the transition into the workplace through apprenticeship, we have a great opportunity to inspire them, nurture them and build a solid, resilient team for the future.” Brown is passionate about the positive impact apprenticeships bring to the workplace. “Young people force us to be open-minded, they ask the questions we wouldn’t think to ask and bring valuable insights that we can all learn from,” he said. “I see this every single day, it’s rewarding on a cerebral level, but if we’re talking cold, hard truths if we don’t do more to bring young people into the industry, we’ve got a real crisis on our hands in less than a decade.” Jacob Pashley, who joined Fernco as an apprentice six months ago and is studying a Level 4 qualification in sales, shares his thoughts on the route of apprenticeship and why this appealed to him. “I’m one of ten on my course and I’m the only apprentice from a manufacturer, the other nine are from merchants, so it’s great to share ideas because they’re ultimately my target customer in the future,” he said. “I’m going to be honest. I didn’t dream of getting into construction, but I knew I didn’t want to go to university after my A ‘levels so I started looking at apprenticeships. I wanted to earn money and have independence but I wasn’t quite ready to stop learning so when this opportunity came up, I just grabbed it. “I love it. It’s the best of all worlds, I massively enjoy being in sales. Initially I spent time in purchasing thinking my economics A level would be good background, but it’s just not for me. In my sales role I love the negotiation, it gives me a massive buzz. A lot of my mates went down the uni-route and apart from the fact I’m always buying the beers, I’m already into my career and saving myself a whole heap of debt. “I think as an industry we’ve got a lot more to do to attract young people, but I think it could be made easier if we push the benefits of apprenticeship, I can take my skills into loads of areas in this industry, but right now I’m loving what I’m doing and I’m proud that my career is well and truly underway.” Lee Pashley concluded: “In 2023 we’re taking on several more apprentices and one of the things we’ve debated is how do we keep apprentices after they’ve qualified? The truth is, we might not keep them forever. But if many more businesses get behind apprenticeships, we are significantly increasing the pool of talent available to us all and that must be our collective priority.”