Recruitment specialist, Randstad and communications and marketing expert, Bradley O'Mahoney, are collaborating in a series of workshops to enable companies in the construction and built environment to transform their employer branding.
A series of four workshops – covering employer branding, staff attraction, retention and skill/ reskill are planned with Constructing Excellence North East across 2025. The first workshop, Employer Branding and the War for Talent, takes place 12 March at Evolve Centre, Houghton le Spring from 8.30am – 11am.
Nik Welsh, chair of Constructing Excellence North East and executive director of communities and customer services at believe Housing will be a guest speaker.
Catriona Lingwood, chief executive of Constructing Excellence North East, said: “The construction and built environment sector is performing extremely well, with exciting projects coming forward at a rapid rate. It is well documented the industry requires thousands of new recruits to ensure the North East meets its strategic targets for growth.
“Much positive work to ensure we recruit to the sector is well underway. However, while the issue of training new people is critically important, many companies need to recruit now. That is why this series of seminars is so important, as it addresses the immediate concern many companies face, ensuring they, and not their competitors, capture the best talent currently available on the market.
“Competition to hire top people is intense and many companies need to transform their employer branding and understanding of what candidates are looking for. By doing so, they give themselves the very best opportunity to hire the people they need to take their businesses forward.”
The first workshop on Employer Branding, will look at how to position a company as a great place to work. Examining whether employers really know what prospective candidates think of them and what they are looking for in an employer.
Sarah Sidey, northern regional director at Randstad, said: “The workshops will provide an opportunity for reflection, as we encourage employers to be curious through open discussion on how they are currently presenting themselves to the talent within their business and those they are looking to attract.
“Our latest Workmonitor Report showed work-life balance now ranks higher than pay on workers’ lists of priorities (95%), more than any other consideration. Nearly a third say career progression is not a priority because they are happy in their role (31%), but that does not stop them wanting to future-proof their skills through training (72%).
“Workers favour employers whose opinions, values and world views reflect their own, as like-minded partners, they can work with to improve equity in the workplace. Over a third said they wouldnt accept a job if they did not agree with the views of the organisations leadership. At the same time, there is an overarching feeling that employers dont understand their workforce, with Gen Z expressing this view most strongly (44%).”
Sarah O’Mahoney, director, Bradley O’Mahoney, which works heavily in the built environment and construction with clients such as Construction Alliance North East, Northern Counties Builders Federation, Castle, JK Property Consultants, Asbestos Audit, Hodgson Sayers, Carney Consultancy, John N Dunn, Constructing Excellence North East, Opus Building Services, HLA Services and Silverstone Building Consultancy, said: “There are often simple steps that companies can take to develop employer branding. One of the most obvious is recognising that if hiring staff is the key priority for a business, then this should be reflected in more dynamic engagement on its website. The techniques around this will be just one of the issues we will discuss during our first seminar.”
To book a place at the workshop, please contact Leanne Conway at Constructing Excellence North East. Leanne@cene.org.uk