A chance to gain key skills and experience
Amanda Stainton is HR director for Portakabin, which is based in York. The family-owned business has 1,750 employees and is planning to add 30 new recruits from the Kickstart Scheme.
“We’ve been very fortunate in that we haven’t had to furlough any of our employees, and we felt the Kickstart Scheme was a great opportunity to build on what we already do with apprenticeships,” says Amanda. “We’ve had over 40 apprentices over the past eight years, and Kickstart is another opportunity for young people to get some real experience and improve their skills.
“I have children of a similar age, and I understand the longer you spend out of work after coming out of education, the harder it is to get into it. Opportunities in areas like retail and hospitality have disappeared due to the pandemic, and we don’t want young people to get left behind.”
Portakabin will be able to offer a wide range of experience for its young recruits, as Amanda explains: “Because we’re a manufacturing organisation, we’ve got lots of opportunities here – within manufacturing, but also in marketing, IT, HR and in our commercial teams. We’ll be running programmes in terms of CV writing and interview techniques too, which will provide that extra set of skills and experiences that will hopefully mean they can be successful outside Portakabin, or perhaps join us as apprentices, if we have those opportunities available.”