Volunteer It Yourself (VIY) is a social enterprise that encourages young people to volunteer to fix and upgrade community facilities across the country. As well as giving young people the chance to learn valuable hands-on trade skills, it also helps painting contractors recruit potential apprentices. We recently spoke to Jessica Fawke, People Development Coordinator at Ian Williams, to find out more about the company’s experience taking on apprentices through VIY.
Tell us a bit about yourself and your role at Ian Williams.
As People Development Coordinator, my role is centred on recruiting and supporting the apprentices and trainees at Ian Williams. As a company, we are focused on supporting the next generation of painters and decorators and want young people to thrive and recognise their potential with us. We aim to ensure that around 10% of our workforce are apprentices and that each person is supported at every stage of their learning and development with us.
We also offer a permanent role with Ian Williams once their training is completed. We have hired many apprentices over the years and some of our senior employees even started their journey with us in this way.
How was the connection between VIY and Ian Williams made?
Last year, our Dulux account manager told us about VIY. As we were looking to recruit, they put us in touch with the team there as VIY had several volunteers in the Nottingham area. We received applications from a number of young people who had volunteered with VIY, and later we offered them apprenticeships.
What are the benefits of recruiting young people through VIY?
VIY did a fantastic job of raising awareness of our vacant positions and generating applications. The team also supported their young people to complete our online application form and provide the insight and detail we needed to identify suitable candidates easily. Our apprentices have wide ranging backgrounds and experience levels. However, knowing that someone has volunteered with VIY shows that they have a drive and excitement to enter the decorating industry. VIY provides valuable on-site experience, which is great for us as apprentices can really hit the ground running. We are continuing to work with VIY and hope to welcome more of its young people into our business.
What advice would you give to painting contractors considering taking on apprentices through VIY?
Get in touch and give it a go! VIY has great reach across the country and can really help to boost the number of quality applicants. VIY is so enthusiastic about younger people, which is exciting and incredibly helpful as a partner.
If you could sum up the experience of working with VIY in three words, what would they be?
Easy, beneficial and motivational.