Can UK manufacturing survive without fixing its skills crisis?
In this episode of MDs in Manufacturing, Kerry Hope, Managing Director of Castle Employment Group, speaks with Chris Houston, MD of Tadweld, about what it really takes to grow a business, build a winning culture, and tackle one of the biggest threats facing British industry – the shortage of skilled welders and engineers.
From record growth to bold cultural change, Chris reveals how Tadweld doubled its team, delivered over 2,500 hours of training, and became one of Yorkshire’s fastest-growing engineering firms. This is a conversation every manufacturing leader – and policymaker – should hear.
In this episode you’ll learn:
• Why UK welding and fabrication are at a tipping point
• How to build a people-first culture that actually retains talent
• The truth about apprenticeships and why current funding fails SMEs
• How Tadweld used digital innovation and Made Smarter funding to scale
• Why investing in people always pays off – even in tough times
Chris’ message is clear: if you want to grow, care about your people, move with purpose, and fight for the future of UK manufacturing.
Subscribe to MDs in Manufacturing for more real conversations with Yorkshire leaders who are shaping the next era of British industry.
#Manufacturing #Leadership #Apprenticeships #SkillsGap #Welding #Engineering #MadeSmarter #MDsinManufacturing #CastleEmploymentGroup #Tadweld
Kerry Hope (00:00)
Welcome to the MDs in Manufacturing podcast, where we hear directly from business leaders
across Yorkshire and what it really takes to run a manufacturing business in today’s climate. I’m
Kerry Hope Managing Director of Castle Employment Group. And today I’m joined by Chris Houston,
Managing Director of Tadweld. Welcome, Chris. Chris Houston (00:17)
Hi, nice to meet you, Kerry. Kerry Hope (00:18)
Thank you. Thanks so much for taking time to be with me today
because I’m imagining that you’ve got a very busy schedule. So I’m really
grateful for you taking that time. Chris Houston (00:27)
Absolutely, happy to help. Kerry Hope (00:28)
Great. Chris, to kick off, do you want to tell our listeners more
about what Tadweld are famous for? Chris Houston (00:34)
So we’re a specialist of engineering fabrication business, been trading
just over 40 years and we’re based in Tadcaster in North Yorkshire. And we do a lot of work
across the food and drink sector and other high tech sectors, especially in things like
structural steel work, sheet metal fabrication. And we work with some big brands, the
likes of Coca-Cola, Heineken, Molson Coors So day-to-day well-recognised brands who expect
really high quality fabrication and welding. Kerry Hope (01:06)
Fabulous, thank you. And I know that you’ve helped lead Tadweld
through a huge period of growth recently, and change, but where did it all start
for you? How did your career path bring you into this role and what’s shaped
your leadership style along the way? Chris Houston (01:21)
Sure. So I guess everybody has their own journey. Mine is fairly untypical,
I think, of an SME owner in Yorkshire. I did a business degree straight out of school. I’m
from York and I defected to Lancaster actually to do a business degree and then joined
Rolls Royce Aerospace in the kind of, yeah. in the aerospace sector for five years. did
a graduate programme through them. And then I was fortunate enough to join a smaller
business, one of their suppliers in the aeronautical distribution space. I like
to kind of refer to it almost as the B&Q of aerospace. Lots of big warehouses full of
thousands and thousands of small parts and was lucky enough to have multiple roles with
them from customer facing, supplier facing. Kerry Hope (02:05)
Okay. Chris Houston (02:11)
strategy roles, and then actually moved to the US to run their US business.
I was out there a total of five years through kind of Donald Trump round one and COVID and all
of the ups and downs of the aerospace sector as it was. And then, ultimately, decided that I
wanted to come back to the UK and move out of… Kerry Hope (02:17)
Mm-hmm. Chris Houston (02:33)
what was a private equity, large corporate environment and
coming to do something more local, more regional and ultimately build a life
back in my home county. And that’s really where Tadweld came in. So I was looking
for investment opportunities in the region, looked at a number of businesses and
it was through a mutual family link… that I managed to become aware of Tadweld.
It’s not a family owned business, albeit, hopefully we’ll come on to talk about some
of the culture and values of the business. And it feels very much like that, but it’s
not, it’s an investor owned organisation. And I’m fortunate enough now to be one
of those investors. And when I made my investment back in 2022, I joined
the business as Managing Director… and have now been there around three years. Kerry Hope (03:25)
Brilliant. And I couldn’t agree more. I often think successful SME leaders can make
the transition from the corporates into SME. And along with that brings that structure that you
see in a corporate, but you can apply it, can you really successfully into an SME environment?
So I can empathise completely on that transition across. And I came from a corporate and then
moved into an SME and people don’t appreciate what you learn and how you can make that
transition across. So thanks for sharing that. Chris Houston (03:52)
Yeah. Kerry Hope (03:54)
I know that you have recently in the press been really vocal about the severe
skill shortages, ⁓ in welding especially, and for SMEs like yours this is a
big challenge. Is there anything else creating pressure right now for you whether
that’s people like we’ve mentioned or cost tariffs, competition or capacity?
What’s your biggest pressure point? Chris Houston (04:01)
Hmm. Yeah, I think with all businesses, it begins with
people. And I think specifically one of the topics I’ve been particularly vocal about
is apprenticeships and getting the younger generation interested
in, yes, of course, welding, but also just sort of the STEM subjects as a
wider, a wider bunch of topics for careers. And there’s been some, recent policy changes
that have made that sort of more costly and more expensive for employers to do, which I think
is counterproductive to where we’re heading. But outside of that, the landscape is difficult.
You know, the UK economy, as we’ve seen, experienced a lot of inflation, the same
things that are affecting us in the home, like energy costs and those kinds of
things, interest rates, they all affect. Kerry Hope (04:53)
Hmm. Chris Houston (05:10)
the business climate. Particularly working with some of the large
multinationals that we work with, it affects their appetite to invest in the UK as they’re looking
at a global remit of investment opportunities, whether they’re going to open a new factory in the
UK or in a different European country or even in a different international country. So some of those
things that affect us on a micro level actually beyond our SME remit affect the investment
decisions more broadly and some of the other things like Brexit and things come
into those considerations. Fortunately, from a tariff perspective, we’ve
not experienced too much of an impact there. That has predominantly been
European to US steel and that hasn’t played out. Kerry Hope (05:42)
Hmm. Chris Houston (05:59)
out too much but, just again, that general uncertainty in the economy is making things a
little people a little bit reticent to make those final investment decisions and I’m sure you’re
seeing that across your client base as well. Kerry Hope (06:11)
Absolutely, know the biggest pain point and pressure and conversations
are just everything related to uncertainty and what’s coming next from Rachel Reeves, what’s
coming next that might affect businesses that doesn’t seem to be on our side that’s just
making things really challenging. So yeah, that’s exactly what I’m hearing from
our client base. So thanks for sharing that because you know what is brilliant
to hear and see is that you are still moving forward and having really fabulous
years like you have had last year and you’re clearly not standing still. Would you say
or would you be able to share what change, whether that’s big or small, that
you feel might have helped drive any efficiencies or value in your business
that you think would be helpful to share? Chris Houston (06:59)
Yeah. I’ll try and condense it to three things. I think number one was getting really
clear on what we want to do, who we want to be, where we want to target as an organisation.
And it’s that classic – defining your USP or your value proposition to your clients. And,
when I joined the business three years ago, We didn’t really have an outbound sales team.
It was very much word of mouth, repeat customer, referral led, which is a fantastic base to build
from because it means that clients are using you because you’re really good at what you do. but
we didn’t have a deliberate go-to-market strategy and, we’ve developed that quite considerably
over the last three years. We now have a Sales Director, two and a Marketing Lead So our external
presence is so much stronger. And with that … Kerry Hope (07:43)
Mm-hmm. Chris Houston (07:46)
comes all of your digital things like improved advertising, improved website, etc. So I think, being really clear on what our
value proposition is and our go-to-market plan. Kerry Hope (07:56)
Just on that, … what percentage would you say now
is new business? Like last year on that successful 2024 that you had, what
percentage would you put that at now? Chris Houston (08:02)
I’ll probably… Probably over 20% of the businesses is, you
know, new business acquisition. So that’s been absolutely sort of fundamental for our growth.
And it’s not always about new business acquisition in terms of new names on the logo slide, so to
speak. But also it’s about mining those existing client relationships. So for us, for example,
we might be really strong at a couple of… Kerry Hope (08:07)
⁓ brilliant. Mm. Mmm. Hmm. Hmm. Chris Houston (08:28)
the Coca-Cola sites in the UK, but then we don’t really have a presence or support at a couple of
other sites. So it’s how are we deliberate about going and mining that and how are we deliberate?
And ultimately it’s a win-win scenario, right? If we’re a really great fabricator that turns up
every time, that delivers a great quality product at the right price, then those other sites want
to know about us. How do we package that up and make sure that our market, go-to-market plan
and our value proposition is really clear? Kerry Hope (08:34)
Mmm. Hmm. Absolutely. Chris Houston (08:56)
So I think that was, that was one of the fundamentals that when I came into
the business, we really worked hard on with the existing team to develop. I think number two is
all about people, culture, values, behaviours and I could probably fill a whole separate
podcast just on, that topic. But I think again, defining the values of the organisation and how
as a leadership team, wanted to develop and shape Kerry Hope (09:02)
Mm-hmm. Chris Houston (09:22)
the culture, what type of employer we wanted to be. We have seven strategic
themes in the business, but the number one is we want to be a great employer. That I guess, coming
to some of the talent shortages and attracting apprentices and all those kinds of things, it’s
paramount to our success as an organisation, not just to say that, we value our people and people
are our greatest asset and things like that. Kerry Hope (09:30)
Mm-hmm. Chris Houston (09:46)
We want our people to actually feel like they are our greatest asset
and really, really be an employer that people know cares about them and wants the best for
them because, although it’s simple, if you’ve got happy employees, they do better work. It’s
still, it’s surprising how many organisations seem to miss the mark a little bit on that. So we
were very deliberate about running an employee. Kerry Hope (09:49)
hehe Hmm. Brilliant. Chris Houston (10:08)
running an employee engagement survey, understanding the needs of our employment
base, putting in deliberate action plans and really driving the needle on providing,
on doing that. And then the third one, just back to your point about operations
and efficiency was reviewing our footprint, our legacy equipment, machinery, opportunities
to invest in new technologies and automation. We made a couple of sizable investments
in some laser welding equipment, … Kerry Hope (10:23)
Mm. Chris Houston (10:35)
which is a new bit of kit to the market, which for thin consistent welding is
particularly higher quality and quicker and also it’s a slightly different skill
to the traditional welding skills, so you can potentially pick it up a little
bit quicker. We made some pretty significant investments in just replacing legacy kit and
whenever you do that although they do a similar Kerry Hope (10:50)
Hmm. Chris Houston (10:59)
⁓ activity like bending or cutting or whatever, which is kind of fundamental.
They do it more consistently quicker, ⁓ smarter, more connected in terms of like IOT and
things like that. I think that’s been the three step approach is develop the sales
pipeline, implement a great culture and then build an operation that can actually deliver that
kind of dream that you’ve sold to your clients. Kerry Hope (11:06)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, brilliant. On that third point then, is
that where you worked with Made Smarter and worked with them on the funding
for that laser machine? Yeah. Chris Houston (11:33)
Yeah, absolutely. for those who don’t know, Made Smarter are
a nationally funded scheme for businesses that want to embrace digital industry 4.0,
particularly focused on the manufacturing sector. And so, through that sort of
laser welding, digitally connected, internet of things type topic, we were able to
get some grant funding towards that investment. Kerry Hope (11:39)
Mm. Chris Houston (11:59)
As you know, as an SME, every little helps to
support those big investments. Kerry Hope (12:03)
Absolutely and I think that in itself – and I would love to do
a podcast on culture, by the way – but I think that in itself is a challenge
for leaders to constantly need to be knowing where they need their finger on
the pulse to know where is the funding, where to get the funding and I can appreciate
that Made Smarter have got a lot of work to do to make sure that everybody knows where they are and
how to access that funding so it’s brilliant that you’ve been proactive and taking the initiative
to find out where that is and how to use it. Thank you so much for sharing those ⁓ three areas. They’re certainly areas that leaders will
be able to resonate with and reflect on, I’m sure. And you did talk a little bit about it,
but I’d like an opportunity to talk further on, I was reading that you’d delivered over two and a
half thousand hours of training in the past year, and you’ve gone on to hire your 50th
team member. And you’ve also flagged, you was talking about earlier, about the rising
wage costs and how that impacts apprenticeships. Other than what you’ve already mentioned,
is there anything else you would want to elaborate on that is around your attraction, how
you’re getting people in? Because obviously the culture and the values is how you’re retaining
them. ⁓ But is there anything on what you’re doing differently from an attraction point of
view or anything that you want to share on? Chris Houston (13:08)
Hmm. Kerry Hope (13:16)
Tackling the longer term workforce pipeline challenge. Chris Houston (13:19)
Yeah. I do not. think it’s amazing. The conversations that I had
down the pub. And what I mean by that is if you have an engaged and happy workforce, it’s not just their immediate family when they
go home on an evening that recognises that, there is so much in the way that our employees are
our employer brand into our customers because for Kerry Hope (13:25)
Mm. Mm-hmm. Chris Houston (13:42)
I’d say over 80% of the work we do, we actually visit our customer site to install it.
So they don’t get to see me. They get to see Joe, who’s a welder or whatever. So they
represent us and it’s why we all wear brands and why we work really hard
at that reputation. But they also represent us. When they go down to the pub
on a Friday evening and they talk to their mates about how they really love the fact
that they’re working at Tadweld or we’ve Kerry Hope (13:51)
Hmm. Chris Houston (14:08)
done some new things. So I think, that has gone a long way to almost
having a pipeline of people that want to come and work for Tadweld. ⁓ When
we put a welding or a labour advert out, we normally get 5 to 10 applications within
the first week. Of course, if we can get a referral or if we know someone that knows
somebody else then, gives an insight … Kerry Hope (14:14)
Brilliant. Chris Houston (14:28)
then that’s all the better really. And so, we’ve been able to attract
friends of friends or other people who’ve worked in the industry and then be in sort of a
semi-luxurious position of being able to choose between two or three candidates. On the flip
side, I think back to the training point is… Kerry Hope (14:30)
Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm. Chris Houston (14:46)
There is an expectation, I think both at a younger level when people join
the business, but also into a middle manager level that people come with the skills,
whether it’s a 16 year old that, somehow, we expect to be diligent, hardworking, always turn
up on time and have, somehow, colleges produce this wonderful person for you to employ. I think
to me that just seems like a bit of a misnomer. It’s, ⁓ inherent on the organisation to shape
and develop and coach and mentor and things like that. And so, there’s a couple of really famous
quotes around, what happens if I invest or I train somebody and then they become really good
and they leave. And it’s like, yeah, but what if you don’t train them and they stay? And that’s one
of my favorite quotes, I think, is that about two and a half thousand hours, that investment that
we’re giving into people, people value and … Kerry Hope (15:33)
Hmm. Chris Houston (15:35)
As you’ve mentioned, it’s potentially more of a retention thing rather
than an attraction thing, but being able to then vocalise that then hopefully attracts other people
that want to come to a workplace where they’ll get opportunities and they know that they’ll be,
you know, invested in and hopefully we can get the best out of them. And again, that provides
self-fulfillment and things like that because people feel like they’re doing valuable work. so
yeah, I’d say that’s the biggest thing. There’s no Kerry Hope (15:54)
Hmm. Chris Houston (15:59)
master advertising plan. There’s job descriptions and things that
are all important. Absolutely they are, but we don’t promise anything beyond the norm. Kerry Hope (16:00)
Mmm. Hmm. Out of interest, how do you manage that
internally then? Is it that you’ve upskilled your line managers to be better at developing
people and to be bringing them through and doing on job training? Or is it that you’ve
invested in an external company or is it that you’ve got an internal L&D person? How some
really interesting, I mean, as you say – we can talk much longer about this subject –
but that’s huge investment, and investment in people is the best investment and the cost of
a new hire, you know yourself what that can be. Chris Houston (16:25)
show. Kerry Hope (16:32)
So it’s invaluable, but how do you actually
practically make that happen? Chris Houston (16:37)
Yeah, I think number one is from a recruitment and sort of talent identification
process is to, again, it’s kind of cliche, but recruit behaviour not experience, you know, I
think unless you really, really do need some very specialist type of experience or skill set,
but, you know, very early doors, you know, identified the talent within the organisation
or the management team in the organisation. Kerry Hope (16:53)
Mm. Chris Houston (17:03)
were fantastic individuals, fantastic human beings, but potentially
hadn’t had the opportunity to go on management development programs and courses and things
like that. That was through the support of identifying the right external provider
to provide them with leadership and management development. We’ve run supervisor
essential programs. Some of those have been Kerry Hope (17:20)
Hmm. Chris Houston (17:25)
in-house that we’ve worked with an external provider to deliver something
that’s specific to Tadweld. Other times, that’s in more of an open programme format where you’re
sending one person into an environment where there’s three or four other companies and people
get to share. So yeah, it just it really depends. Then one of the other really nice things that
I think we’re really strong in are the company values. So we have three; teamwork, quality,
innovation. We try and keep that really… Kerry Hope (17:40)
Okay. Chris Houston (17:50)
clean, because I think you start to forget when businesses have 6,
7, 8, 9, 10. And we make that very real on a monthly basis. So we recognise employees, we
have an internal recognition programme that allows anybody to recognise anybody else. We
give out branded chocolate, 50 pound vouchers, etc, just to recognise those people that
go above and beyond. And I would say … Kerry Hope (18:10)
Mm. Chris Houston (18:11)
that in itself gives a very strong indication of the people who you
would potentially want to consider to be leaders in your future organisation,
because they are the ones that are actually living and practicing
the values on a daily basis. Kerry Hope (18:27)
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s just really refreshing to hear. That’s
absolutely why you’re standing out and why everyone in the local area or that’s got
a skill set that knows that you’re hiring will be choosing you as an employer because
it’s refreshing and it’s stale out there and other leaders really need to reflect on that, I
think. So thank you for expanding on that. I mean, you’ve clearly been making bold moves to be
able to achieve the success. ⁓ Is there any… tough call that you’ve had to make and was
there any learns that you could share from that, that other leaders might reflect
on or be able to resonate with. Chris Houston (18:59)
I was, yeah, tough calls. I think as leaders, make hundreds of decisions
every day. And I think probably, I’d say most leaders think the hardest ones generally either
resolve or revolve around giving feedback or ultimately ending employment. And as a growing
business, I think we’ve probably hired over … When I started, we had a head count
of 23, as you’ve just referenced, we’re up to 50 now in a ⁓ three-year period.
I think we probably got three or four hires wrong along that way, and they weren’t
necessarily bad individuals or anything like that. Sometimes you do just make a
mistake and there’s a disconnect between what that employee thinks they’re coming
into and what you think they can bring. Other times it’s cultural fit, other times
it’s individual fit, like manager to employee fit. So there are, I think they’re always the
hardest, is to recognise early enough and know when you can invest and you need to make sure
that you’re giving people enough opportunity and giving them the feedback and things
to be able to turn something around or to develop. But also to know when actually
the best thing for both sides is to … Kerry Hope (19:48)
Mm-hmm. Chris Houston (20:08)
move on. That’s very generic and non-specific. So I apologise
for the example, but I think in general, you know, they are always the toughest
calls. I think I’m really digging into the depths here in terms of like trying to
make difficult decisions. One of the ones that I think the team may be struggled
with was that Tadweld, as an SME, was… and is a very community focused business. And
so we do lots of work in terms of supporting local school clubs, school teams, trying to
be a good corporate citizen, but at the same time as an organisation and as a profitable
business, if somebody walks through the door and wants their step ladders repairing, or we’ve
had quite a few funny examples. We’ve had a … Kerry Hope (20:38)
Hmm. Chris Houston (20:50)
reindeer losing its horn and wanting the horn welding back on. We’ve had
say ladder repairs, little badges that people want welding up and things like that. And you
want to help as a business, you want to help, but there’s also a recognition that you, don’t
just not make money. You lose money when you do really, really small local support projects.
And so we instigated a £1,000 minimum … Kerry Hope (20:56)
Right. Chris Houston (21:13)
order threshold and don’t get me wrong, people can still walk in the
door begged for forgiveness and we still of course do do small local community projects but
where possible we try to say no to that type of work. We’re now at an organisation size where
we just can’t really support that and that was a bit of a tricky one to sell to the team or
even at least have the conversation with the Kerry Hope (21:14)
Mm-hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Chris Houston (21:33)
team and it probably took several months and several attempts for me to eventually
get them to recognise that yeah, probably we can no longer do that because it’s distracting
us from delivering much bigger projects for larger clients. So I’m sure there’s many SMEs
that struggle with that little kind of dilemma of wanting to do small bits of work, but that’s
probably not what’s driving your business revenue. Kerry Hope (21:43)
Yeah. Yeah absolutely and those are like you said the toughest decisions
where you know that you’re not going to get the initial buy-in but in time they see they
see the way and they see the light. Fantastic, well thanks for sharing that because I can
imagine that was a tricky time. You recently said that it was a cliff edge moment
for welding in the UK and we talk about like you’ve mentioned from
an apprenticeship point of view Chris Houston (22:14)
Hmm. Kerry Hope (22:18)
that we need to get some more skills coming through. What would you like to see happen? Is
there anything specific that you’re an ambassador for? Is that from colleges? Is that from the
government or industry? What do you think needs to happen to turn the tide in this skill shortage
and specifically around welding in the UK? Chris Houston (22:36)
Yeah, I mean, first off, it starts with recognising we’ve got a problem
and I think that is becoming more evident. think, you know, the recent industrial strategy
that was published specifically highlighted welding as a sort of a strategically and
nationally strategic important skill that lacked a pipeline of talent or of people
coming into the the industry. So I think it’s great that it’s starting
to get the recognition that it Kerry Hope (22:41)
Mm. Chris Houston (23:02)
deserves. And I think it’s unfortunate that most things end up in a money conversation,
but the reality is a little bit, I remember when I was younger, there was incentives for people
to become maths teachers, right? There was a national shortage for maths teachers and therefore
I can’t remember exactly what the programme was, but you could get your university fees funded or
whatever that looked like. And I think, you know, it doesn’t have to be rocket science. I
think fundamentally it does come down to Kerry Hope (23:09)
Mm. Absolutely. ⁓ Chris Houston (23:30)
if the government feels like that’s a nationally important skill that
funding would go a long way to do that. I think all apprenticeships are currently funded in terms
of the course element of it but the challenge for employers has become incrementally difficult, it’s
purely the cost of employment in its own right. Kerry Hope (23:38)
Hmm. Hmm. Chris Houston (23:51)
Welding is at our welding level three causes of a three and a half year programme. minimum
wage for, an apprentice is now 10 pounds an hour. And the reality is in those three and a
half years, we have someone that is unskilled, obviously towards the end of that time, they’re
becoming more skilled and we can start to charge for time and things like that. But the upfront
cost of training a 16 year old over that … Kerry Hope (23:59)
Mm-hmm. Hmm. Chris Houston (24:16)
lifetime is probably in excess of £70,000 without the costs that we’re forgoing
in or the hours lost of the trainer training that apprentice, etc. That’s just the cost of
employing that person and so yeah trying to do that en masse is really, really difficult. So
think number one is funding. I think number two, and I think this is where we have made
strides as a country, as a society is Kerry Hope (24:18)
Hmm. Mm. Chris Houston (24:45)
the recognition that trades and apprenticeships and things like that are a genuine alternate to
further education from an academic perspective. And that’s why in a way it feels so frustrating
that probably over the last 10 years, we’ve worked really hard at building STEM and manufacturing and
things like that as a place where people want to be. And yet now we have the demand from students
coming out. I think, you know, we normally have five-fold applications for our apprentice
programme, sometimes more, but we can’t afford to take them on. So there are people, there are
students there, there are young adults who want to come and learn more about welding and want
to try and develop a career in engineering, but organisations simply can’t afford to take
them into the workforce, is really difficult. Kerry Hope (25:17)
Mmm. Hmm. Hmm. Chris Houston (25:35)
can only get is only more difficult. think the smaller the business is
as well. So yeah, for my two pennies worth, that’s that’s the challenge. And I guess
the final bit of that around education is that colleges will go where the demand is
fundamentally and also where the funding is. But with the lower amount of apprenticeships,
say, I think this latest cohort, over .. at York, which is the college that we use for
our welders apprenticeships. For the level three course, maybe only seven or eight people.
And of course they have to fund the tutor, they have to fund the syllabus to
support that. So it’s a little bit of a self-fulfilling cycle that the lower
the number of places are available industry, the lower the number of apprenticeships
that need support from a college and therefore the lower the number of courses
or the lower the number of colleges that Kerry Hope (26:05)
Hmm. Hmm. Chris Houston (26:21)
have welding apprenticeships on offer. So yeah, I would like nothing more than a big
UK rallying behind welding as an industry. Kerry Hope (26:23)
Mm. I couldn’t agree anymore and actually
one of the biggest frustrations is the amount of App Levy money that employers
have to pay that they don’t spend that just goes back to the government whereas actually
that could be recycled into a contribution toward those that aren’t having to pay
the App Levy, to transfer it across and you can do that but it still wouldn’t
be enough funding to pay the salary, it’s still only for the course isn’t it so but
they could recycle that money if they’ve already Chris Houston (26:40)
Mm. it is. Kerry Hope (26:56)
allocated it to that, then it could go towards the funding. So yeah, I couldn’t agree
more with that. And I’d be behind the rally that’s going forward for it. But thank you for sharing
all of that. And thank you for joining me on today’s episode of MD’s and Manufacturing, because
it’s been brilliant to hear your perspective, not just on what it takes to grow and obviously lead
a business like Tadweld, but also to hear about how you’ve gone about attracting people into
the business, your employee value proposition, how to become an employer of choice, which
you’ve talked about. And it’s, as I mentioned earlier, it was so refreshing to hear what you’re
doing because it’s quite different to what we hear the majority talking about. And I think, like you
say, it’d be great to get another podcast on how to make those changes culturally to really help
with retention and then ultimately attraction. Because it shows that even in a tough
climate there is an opportunity for growth like what you’ve shared with
me today. So thank you for joining me. Chris Houston (27:58)
You’re very welcome. Thank you for having me. Kerry Hope (28:00)
Thank you and for everyone else tuning in, I hope today’s conversation
has given you a real practical insight and I definitely think there are ideas in there
for you to take away and reflect on and reassurance that there are others facing the same
challenges but there are solutions out there as well and hopefully this podcast will help the
listeners find ways to keep moving forward. If you’ve enjoyed the episode, please give
it a like, share it with your network and subscribe to the MDs in Manufacturing podcast
so that you don’t miss any future conversations with these inspirational leaders. Chris, thanks
again for your time and thank you to everyone for listening. We’ll be back soon with some more
stories from Yorkshire’s manufacturing leaders.