Artic Building Services, experts in Hard facilities management, has showcased its commitment to developing its people by joining The 5% Club, an industry led initiative focussed on driving momentum into the recruitment of apprentices, graduates and sponsored students.

The 5% Club, initiated by Leo Quinn Group, CEO of Balfour Beatty, is a movement of more than 500 employers providing ‘earn and learn’ opportunities to develop the skills and talents people need to become more employable and create meaningful careers. Companies joining The 5% Club commit to raising the number of apprentices, sponsored students and graduates on formal programmes to 5% of their total workforce within five years. Members are also asked to publicly report their progress in their Annual Report. Existing members range from SMEs to FTSEs and cover a number of diverse industries, from engineering through to the legal sector.

Artic joined the 5% club to further enhance their following their ‘grow their own’ policy in promoting apprenticeships within the Facilities Management sector. They have a Director led strategy focusing on building the next generation of engineers within Artic and the wider FM industry.

Colin Trowell, Managing Director said, “Training the staff of the future is vital, so that we ensure our onsite teams have apprentices to gain experience in live environments and also with our mobile engineers out on the road. Whether they are developing engineering skills or administrative competencies we believe in growing our own team from the ground up. We aim to improve skills and support our team with the direction of their career.”

Gill Cronin, Director of Operations of The 5% Club said, “We’re delighted to welcome Artic into membership. The 5% Club provides a fantastic network of HR professionals, sharing and learning from each other.  All our members share an ethos of creating a skilled workforce through ‘earn and learn’ development programmes, helping people develop meaningful career paths.”

Artic currently have 3 employees studying full time apprenticeships within the business and 2 sponsored students currently studying NVQ Level 6 in Occupational H&S, all fully funded by Artic. Artic aim to have 8 employees within apprenticeships or graduate schemes over the next 5 years.

To find out more information about The 5% Club and how to become a member, please visit www.5percentclub.org.uk