18 April 2018

ELS presentation at the House of Lords

John writes: I spoke at the House of Lords yesterday about our achievement of the Ethical Labour Sourcing Standard. Baroness Young of Hornsey hosted the reception at the House of Lords to mark the launch of ELS online, a digital tool to help companies to achieve the Ethical Labour Sourcing Standard (ELS). I was delighted to

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11 April 2018

VGC's rising star Charlie

Charlie Passingham used to struggle to get out of bed. Now he’s a VGC traffic marshal with a bright future ahead of him. Charlie has Asperger’s and was suffering from suffocating panic attacks until MENCAP helped him with coping strategies. He’d always wanted to be a builder, so after a two-day taster at Barking and

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27 March 2018

Successful NVQs for five apprentices

Congratulations to five of our apprentices on their successful NVQ qualifications. Daniel Smith, David Williams Sarpong, Daniel Pang, Arsalan Aleem and Josiah Narkwa recently completed their Level 2 NVQ Diplomas in Railway Engineering. The apprentices signed up with labour manager Nick Wells after he visited them at the College of North East London (CONEL). Before

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16 March 2018

Welcome to Lemos, our latest apprentice

Lemos Pereria has started his apprenticeship on the A14. Lemos (on the right in the photo, next to key influencer Rishi Khera) has joined our trail-blazer apprenticeship programme. He started on 16 March as a general operative, and VGC will enrol him on an NVQ in highways maintenance engineering. The A14 IDT (integrated delivery team)

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13 March 2018

Pay arrangements for Easter 2018

VGC’s offices will be closed from the evening of Thursday 29 March until 08:30 on Tuesday 3 April. Pay arrangments for Easter: For hours worked during the week between Saturday 17 March and Sunday 25 March: Wages will be processed on Tuesday 27 March. We will credit your account on Thursday 29 March 2018. For

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8 March 2018

Women in VGC network launch

Our Women in VGC network launched on International Women’s Day. The meeting, at Cardinal House, saw an excellent turnout of VGC women, with a number of male supporters. Everyone has a voice In his welcome, MD Laurence Mckidd stated that diversity and ethical behaviour are part of being a fair and reasonable business. Everyone has

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5 March 2018

Excellent Inspire Me workshop

Zena writes: Last Thursday I attended the first Inspire Me workshop. VGC is proud to be an official supporter of the campaign. Most of the workshop attendees were women: a refreshing reverse of the normal gender balance at construction events. Everyone had made a tremendous effort to overcome the weather to attend, and there were very few

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14 February 2018

Why VGC is supporting the ‘Inspire Me’ campaign

Why has VGC become a supporter of ‘Inspire Me’? We know our industry is facing a skills shortage, exacerbated by Brexit and an ageing workforce. Arcadis research suggests that British construction must recruit over 400,000 people every year between now and 2021 to meet its needs. Women make up more than half the UK population. But

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7 February 2018

VGC achieves Ethical Labour Standard

VGC is the first labour supply company in the UK to achieve the new Ethical Labour Sourcing Standard (BES 6002:2017). VGC is also the first company in the rail sector, and one of just three companies to date, to attain the Ethical Labour Standard (ELS). The audit report said: “As one of the largest labour and

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7 February 2018

Women in Construction group - our first meeting

Ciara writes: Our initial Women in Construction group meeting yesterday morning went extremely well. We were delighted that our chairman, Sean Fitzpatrick, joined us for the start of the meeting. He reaffirmed that we have senior level board support for the group and looks forward to seeing the improvements that we expect as a result

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