15 years of the K&M Apprenticeship programme

Wednesday, 4 August 2010

While a third of all construction companies have slashed their apprenticeship recruitment plans this year¹, K&M McLoughlin is continuing to buck the trend. In April this year, we welcomed 86 young men and women from local colleges and schools to our open day to meet former apprentices and see a selection of decorating techniques including wall-coverings.

Training Manager, Les Wimpress, our full-time NVQ Assessor and MD, Kevin Mcloughlin, were there to talk the youngsters through the opportunities provided by this unique training programme.

This was the 12th year in a row the company has looked to recruit from within the local community and the fact that 25% of the workforce have been through this scheme is testament to its success.

“Many of the youngsters we took on all those years ago are now some of our most experienced Supervisors and Foremen which goes to prove that, if you want to prevent a ‘skills gap’ in the industry, the best way is to train internally,” says Les Wimpress.

This year 15 youngsters were chosen for a 10 week trial period. Successful applicants will become coveted K&M Apprentices and will undertake a comprehensive three-year training programme to become high-quality painters and decorators.

¹ Research taken from ConstructionSkills ‘Employer Attitudes and Motivations to Learning and Training 2009

It's good to be green!

At K&M McLoughlin we already have some of the greenest credentials in the building industry. Because we are based in the heart of London and only work on projects within the M25, we don’t need a fleet of vehicles to service our jobs.

Even though we are working on three of the biggest projects in the region (St Pancras, The Savoy and The Olympics) our workforce use public transport and we just have three small vans (two of which are LPG) to deliver supplies as and when needed.

We are also serious about waste management, operating under government guidelines and using environmental wash systems. We recycle at every opportunity and, when possible, we work with local charities such as East London Repaint so that any unused paints and decorating materials can be used within the local community.

We have held our own Waste License Certificate for the past five years and have two fully-trained National Construction CITB operatives who are responsible for all our site waste management plans. We are members of NetRegs (http://www.netregs.gov.uk/); Envirowise (http://www.envirowise.gov.uk/) ; Diversity Works for London (http://www.diversityworksforlondon.com/) and The Mayor of London’s Green Procurement Code (http://www.greenprocurementcode.co.uk/)