I am pleased that Valentina, Jennifer and Dana have passed their NPORS plant and vehicle marshal training.
They attended the training earlier this spring. With the addition of the health and safety module, they will be set for a great career in construction.
I met Valentina in December 2020, when she did a work placement on the M4 smart motorway project, facilitated by CSR manager Kimberley McGinty. She had a green CSCS card and experience, but wasn’t sure what roles might be suitable for her. With Balfour Beatty VINCI Joint Venture project manager Glenn Boyd, we developed a programme to give Valentina exposure to various roles.
Dana and Jennifer came through our partnership with West London College. Oonagh McPhillips, head of commercial construction and engineering development, arranged for all three women to do the one-day NPORS plant and vehicle marshal training course run by Hands on Skills Training in Woolwich. Head of delivery Chris O’Sullivan has a really good relationship with them, and is looking to grow our involvement to give more women a chance to get into construction.
Having passed the course, Valentina is now starting work on HS2 for client SCS, supported by labour manager Jana Romanova. She’s about to do a telehandler course to develop her career still further. And we will place Dana and Jennifer on projects near their homes as soon as they get their NPORS cards.
I can’t praise HOST training enough – they were very welcoming and have great facilities at their centre.
Women into Construction
I’ve been involved in several of the Women into Construction initiatives. (VGC is a silver member.) I also took part in the WiC one-day work placement with Morgan Sindall Infrastructure alongside CITB. The event aimed to help women who’d been made redundant due to the coronavirus pandemic, and those struggling to find work in our industry. We talked to fourteen people from across the country about the different opportunities in construction, and gave them advice in their job search. They gave really positive feedback. There were some great candidates, and I hope we did enough to encourage some of these fantastic individuals into our great industry.
