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Skills www.thefis.org 11 looking to fill a new role, so it’s well worth conducting a simple job analysis by listing the expected duties. If the role is new to your organisation but exists in other organisations, there are a number of references that can be used to provide you with details of the job criteria: • the first is the Office for National Statistics and the Sector Occupational Classification Codes that list more than 80,000 occupations recognised in the UK; ( www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/ classificationsandstandards/ standardoccupationalclassificationsoc ) • then there is the National Occupational Standards ( www.ukstandards.org.uk ) that list the minimum level of competence for tasks within occupations, there are over 700 of these for construction occupations; and • if you are considering a new entrant to be trained into the role, take a look at the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education website ( www.instituteforapprenticeships.org ) and the Apprenticeship Standards. Although these standards apply to England, they will be a useful source of job criteria to organisations based and working in the other home nations. There are some brief details on the CITB Go Construct website ( www.goconstruct.org ), at the time of writing it is understood this information is being updated. Learning programme Bear in mind if you are recruiting young people or career changing new entrants, it’s unlikely they will have all of the knowledge and experience your organisation needs. If you want the new recruit to be capable of full speed straight away expect to be disappointed. Your organisation will need an infrastructure capable of nurturing and developing the new entrant. It is no good relying totally on a training provider or throwing them in with experienced staff and expecting them to learn using the ‘sitting by Nellie’ theory. Just paying another 50 pence an hour to a supervisor and expecting them to continue doing their day job while mentoring and coaching a new entrant does not work either. It is as important to have a programme of learning for the workplace as it is for the training environment, a good training provider will help employers with this and may provide training in coaching and mentoring skills. Your organisation will need someone with the abilities to coach and mentor new entrants of any age, someone like an ‘apprentice master’, a job role that is starting to appear in the medium and large organisations of the industry. Step 2: Prepare a job description, this is a useful reference for every role in every organisation and if you need to recruit new people for an existing role, having an existing up-to-date job description will save conducting a job analysis. It also helps when it comes to perfomance reviews and the job description can be amended and updated during this process as the role and job develops, embracing new technology or more efficient methods of work. Regular performance reviews for new entrants provide valuable feedback for the individual and for the organisation. You may wish to consider setting target milestones for new entrants, giving the individual something to aim for with incremental achievement rewards when the required skills and knowledge are demonstrated. Step3: Devise a recruitment strategy, from which a process can be derived. Get it right and you’ll only recruit once or twice in a working lifetime for each role unless your organisation is expanding. Get it wrong and it can become a constant frustration for all involved. Communication is the key, use asmany streams as possible to advertise the vacancy. An orgsanisation’s recruitment strategy will complement an organisation’s succession plan. If you think about it; nobody works forever, the lucky ones who are still racing the clock will retire eventually. In the same way, an ambitious individual will work to be promoted within the organisation or they will move to another organisation that has a vacancy. Has your organisation got a development strategy linked to your succession plan and a recruitment strategy formulated to replace key personnel and attract new entrants? Your organisation may outsource recruitment, but it’s worth taking a look at the Talent Retention Scheme, before paying for a recruitment service. When recruiting young people and new entrants there’s a lot of good free of charge support for employers including: • National Apprenticeship Services; ( https://contact.findapprenticeship. service.gov.uk/ ) • TalentView; ( www.talentview.org ) • Job Centre Plus; ( www.gov.uk/contact- jobcentre-plus ) • CITB Advisors; ( www.citb.co.uk ) • local colleges and/or universities; and • members can use the FIS Job Spot ( www.thefis.org/jobspot ) to advertise vacancies. Step 4: Design a screening process to sift and shortlist applications. You may wish to see a curiculum vitea from the applicants, or they could be required to complete an application form derived from the job description, requesting examples of relevant experience and knowledge can often reveal a match. It’s important to include the vacant roles line manager in this part of the process and it is an opportunity to temper this individual’s expectation, the recruitment process will not always provide someone who’s instantly up to speed. Step 5: During the interview process it is important to ask questions, but it is just as important to listen, and selection interviews are about making a judgement on what is heard. To avoid preconceptions and stereotyping, interviewers need to be trained in interview techniques. It may be useful to include someone on the interview panel who is neutral and not invested in the recruit because they often spot details others don’t. Step 6: People looking for work or an apprenticeship position don’t often apply for one job at a time, so if you find what you deem to be the right candidate, make an offer, don’t keep the individual hanging about as its likely the best candidates will go to another organisation. Step 7: Employee induction must be intergrated into the recruitment strategy, like a training programme, it must be structured and there should be confirmation that the individual has assimilated enough information to survive. Richard Branson said: “Train your people so they can leave at anytime and treat them so they do not want to leave,” people judge early and the induction process will have an impression on your new recruit. STEM Ambassadors Between 6 and 10 December 2021, STEM Learning delivered an interactive, virtual reality careers fair aimed at 14–19-year- olds interested in finding out more about apprenticeships. Set in an online exhibition hall, allowing around 30 employers from across the UK the opportunity to use pre-recorded videos, ‘pull-up’ banners and PDFs to let students know more about their company or industry and the opportunities available. Employers also had the chance to interact directly with young people who visited exhibition stands through a safeguarded, text-based live chat function. FIS Skills and Training Coordinator, Catherine Bullough and Skills and Training Advisor, Marie Flinter, represented FIS as Construction STEM Ambassadors. If you want to know more about the Construction Stem Ambassador network, give FIS a call and keep an eye on the FIS news for details of future Job Fairs. If you need help with recruiting, please contact FIS on: Tel: 0121 707 0077 or Email info@thefis.org i