26 April 2018

Employability event at Brixton prison

Kim writes: I went to prison last week. Tideway West invited VGC to join them at an employability skills event run by Key4Life at Brixton prison on Tuesday 17 April. Labour manager Donatus Jausicas and I were pleased to attend. Key4Life’s mission is to reduce youth reoffending. They deliver rehabilitation programmes to those in prison

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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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12 March 2018

Crowdfunding helped Joe into work with VGC

Joe is working in his first job since 2003, for VGC Group on the Northern Line extension. For over a decade, Joe was homeless. He slept in hostels and on friends’ sofas – and sometimes on the streets. Until last year when he underwent treatment, Joe also struggled with addictions. In August 2017 he joined Beam,

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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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