Social Value
As an organisation, addressing the shortage of young people in the construction workforce is one of our top priorities. With the industry needing 35,000 new workers annually, supporting initiatives that promote construction as a career option is crucial to meeting this demand. By working with clients to support these initiatives, we contribute to the wider industry's efforts in attracting the younger generation to consider a career in construction.
Robyn, our Social Value Manager, has been a CITB Construction Ambassador since 2018 and has interacted with thousands of students of all ages to promote construction as a career option. She focuses on raising awareness about the sector at school level to attract more students to the field. Additionally, Robyn is passionate about promoting the inclusion of women in construction, as currently, only 11% of the industry workforce are female, with only 1% being on-site operatives. Given that women make up half of the UK's population, it is crucial that the construction sector - which contributes 6.5% to the UK's economy - becomes more diverse and inclusive at all skill levels.
At Sphere, we are working to protect the future of the construction workforce by engaging with young people and focusing on finding alternative sources to address the immediate skills shortage. To achieve this, we collaborate with ex-offenders and homeless individuals through charitable organisations such as The Wallich, BOSS Project, and the School of Hard Knocks to provide them with opportunities to enter the construction industry. Providing support to individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds who may not have considered a career in construction has become a growing focus for Sphere Solutions.
Building Better Futures
Most businesses work on the premise of continued growth and success, and whilst it’s always good to aspire to do better, we also have a responsibility to make sure that some of our reinvestment is within our local communities. Whether that local community is geographical or part of an industry or collective, reinvesting our time, skills, and money to contribute to our society as a whole can only be a great thing.
At Sphere Solutions, we want to make sure we can make a difference to our local communities by providing genuine opportunities to people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
We are a recruitment specialist who has been trading for over 16 years. In that time, we have provided recruitment solutions to almost 900 construction companies, filled around 19000 vacancies, and placed around 8500 individuals into construction roles at all levels.
Recently, there have been several news articles about a skills shortage within the construction industry, and the importance of encouraging a fresh wave of talent into the construction sector as quickly as possible.
We believe we have the platform and experience to assist the construction sector AND our local communities, by helping people from disadvantaged backgrounds and situations into the workplace (or site!), learning new skills along the way, and helping to replenish our talent pools.
We’ll be honest, this project is in the early stages and we know we’ve got a lot to learn, and we at Sphere are committed to this initiative for the long term. But our vision and commitment is unequivocally clear – we’re out to Build Better Futures!
Nicole Barnes as our Community Engagement Manager who brings with her 15 years of experience, working for construction firms and supporting them in delivering social value. With Nicole on board, we are able to drive forward our Build Better Futures initiative into the future.