Dudley Industries Support Lancashire Skills Pledge

As a business, we rely on the skills of our people to maintain our competitive edge. We also appreciate the importance of promoting skills development within the community. That’s why we’re proud to reaffirm our commitment to the Lancashire Skills Pledge.

Organised by the Skills and Employment Hub team at Lancashire Enterprise Partnership, the pledge encourages businesses within the county to promote learning, not only within their own workforces but also the communities around them, and to people of all ages.

Our Marketing Manager, Chrissie Rowlinson, has been working as a volunteer Enterprise Advisor for the last two years. Here, she explains her role and how the Pledge is impacting people in Lancashire.

What is an Enterprise Advisor?

It’s a voluntary role and one of the seven pledges that companies can make. In my case, it’s been a very varied and enjoyable role. For example, I've given CV-writing presentations to young people, I’ve supported mock interviews to give students the practice needed to be really confident and I’ve taken part in a number of career fairs to promote the different types of roles available in businesses.

And would you say it’s rewarding?

It is, certainly, and it also challenges me to try new things – like when I was giving an online presentation to about 350 students. But what’s great is the feedback, and knowing that you’re helping young people to make important, perhaps life-changing decisions about their skills and future careers. I particularly enjoyed being on a panel where students could ask us all sorts of questions. Interesting, challenging and fun.

What’s the main objective behind it all?

The whole idea is to prepare students for the workplace; help explain that there are other routes to the careers that they want and that it's not all about just going to university. There are different routes that suit different people, different environments to work in and we make sure that we explain that. It's also important to explain the different roles available in companies. So, for example, whilst I work in an sheet metal engineering and manufacturing business, my background and role is actually in marketing.

So you’d recommend it to others?

Oh, without hesitation. It’s a genuinely useful way to ‘give back’ – as a company and as an individual. There are some things that you never regret investing time in, and this is one of them. It’s useful to people, it’s enjoyable and it’s never the same thing twice. We’re always adapting to new challenges – like delivering online during lockdown – and, of course, we have lots of other ideas in the pipeline.

Supporting the Enterprise Advisor role is just one way Dudley Industries is support training and skills in Lancashire, we also provide Apprenticeship Roles, actively seek to employ people currently out of work and provide training to upskill our team.

If you feel your company could help improve workforce skills across Lancashire pledge your support here:

https://www.lancashireskillshub.co.uk/lancashire-skills-pledge/