Industry Response: Time for Employed Installers | Glaze & Save
We start off a new series here on our regular business blog, responding to commentary and advances in the secondary glazing, glass and construction industries. We hope you find these new pieces interesting: feel free to let us know in the comments!
A blog post back in September from The Double Glazing Bloggerasked the question of why the pool of talent in the glass and glazing industry appeared to be shrinking:
"A chat with an industry friend of mine inspired this post. It was about fitters and where to find them. Turns out it’s not the easiest job in the world to find a fitter these days. Who knew?
We agreed that the talent pool of available fitters in our industry is actually more like a talent bath, soon to become a talent bowl. There seems to be less and less skilled workers out there available to installers who are wishing to grow and push on…
We all know that our industry has a severe shortage of skilled people that is only getting worse. In fact I don’t think we’re that far away from full blown break down. The country has been promised a swathe of three million new apprentices, but even if that does happen, how likely is it that a big enough proportion are going to come the window industry’s way?"
It seems that one of the issues underpinning the shortage of skilled, enthusiastic and ambitious talent in the glass and glazing industry may be the fact that a huge proportion of fitters engaged in the industry are not employed. Self-employment of fitters in the glazing industry I rife and some might say it is a massive turn off to attracting new blood to the industry.
It’s something that we’ve been aware of and keen to do differently at Glaze & Save. Our team of installers are employed by the company, and fully trained and equipped at the company’s expense. Why? Well, in the first instance it guarantees the quality of our installations and conformity of customer experience. We can be assured of the level of knowledge, training and experience each of our installers has, because they have been employed for their previous skills before being trained to our high standards.
We offer pay that exceeds the Living Wage, and are Living Wage Approved employers, as well as paid annual leave and flexible working hours. Offering such pay, conditions and training allows us to attract the best calibre of staff.
As the gig economy continues to grow and freelance, contracted and self-employed work becomes more commonplace, we will always strive to ensure that our workers have the security of employment. It’s not only good for our staff: it’s good for our customers, good for the company and good for business.
Glaze & Saveoffers bespoke magnetic secondary glazing and draught proofing across Scotland. We specialise in historic buildings, domestic and commercial, but our innovative system can be installed over any type of glass. Contact us hereto arrange your free no obligation survey today.
