Since becoming accredited Investors in Young People, B-DACS has been involved in a lot of the good work surrounding youth employment in Glasgow.
As part of Glasgow City Council’s Youth Employment Summit 2014, B-DACS featured in a video that was presented to council executives before being made available to the public.
Designed to promote Glasgow City Council’s youth employment strategy, it gives a real insight into the work B-DACS is doing in this area and the impact it has had on the business.
Background to the Video
In the video, B-DACS director Diane Drummond talks about our partnerships with Jobs & Business Glasgow, Glasgow City Council and Job Centre Plus. They have all been integral to our new recruitment and development strategy, contributing funding and support to help us bring young people into the business.
‘The Investors in Young People award has recognised B-DACS’ commitment to young people and the good things we’ve implemented in the past two years.
‘We’re an employer that focuses on our people because they are our best asset. Moving forward, training and coaching are very much on our agenda, as is remaining a Glasgow Living Wage Employer.’
– Diane Drummond
Particularly in the last few months, B-DACS has taken on more contracts than ever and needed to hire additional staff. As well as recruiting some experienced air conditioning and ventilation engineers, we’ve taken on a number of engineer’s assistants to complete the team.
Our intention is to train them up ourselves, turning them into fully qualified air conditioning engineers wherever possible. Jobs & Business Glasgow and Job Centre Plus have been vital in helping us identify candidates and organise work experience, as well as providing funding for training.
In addition, over the last two years, we’ve recruited young people through Glasgow City Council’s Commonwealth Jobs Fund. This has enabled us to put the money we’ve saved into a training fund, which has been to the benefit of all our employees.
We’re also working towards building an in-house training academy, which will be based on a three year programme to train young recruits to the level of air conditioning engineers. The video features an interview with Diane, explaining our vision in greater detail, as well as shots of the B-DACS office and engineers working on site. The full video also features other local companies and can be viewed here.
Working with Local Schools and Work Experience
Another part of the work we’ve been doing is work experience placements. Many of these are designed with a permanent position in mind, as it’s important for young people to get a taste of the environment they’ll be working in. However, we’ve also had school leavers doing a day’s work experience in the office, giving them something to add to their CV and an insight into running a small business.
As an extension of the work we’re doing with schools, Diane visited Eastbank Academy in Shettleston, Glasgow and gave a talk to their 14-15 year old pupils. Both Diane and her husband and co-director Brian attended the school when they were younger and it’s important for us to continue to strengthen our links with the local community.
Diane’s talk was part of Skills Development Scotland’s Learning Through Work Week and focused on what employers look for when hiring young people. At B-DACS, we’re always keen to emphasise that it isn’t just about skills; attitude is, more often than not, the deciding factor.