Take 5: Southbourne Rubber

Welcome to the The 5% Club Podcast: Take Five – where we bring you insight, inspiration and innovation from employers, stakeholders, policy makers and contributors, all in 5% of your working day.

This episode is delivered in collaboration with the Youth Futures Foundation and forms part of a mini-series supporting the Make It An Apprenticeship Campaign.

Today Chris Shirley, Fellow of The 5% Club, is in conversation with Stephen Wilde, Managing Director of Southbourne Rubber, who shares how apprentices have been such a vital part of his business strategy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hello and welcome to Take Five, the podcast from the Five Percent Club, where we bring you insight, inspiration, and innovation from employers, stakeholders, policymakers, and contributors, all in just 5% of your working day. So, grab yourself a cup of tea or pop on your trainers and headphones. However, you like to listen, we're glad you've chosen to listen to us. I'm Chris Shirley. As a fellow of the 5% Club, I have the pleasure of guest hosting today's episode of Take Five. The Five Percent Club are a national employer movement built by employers for employers, inspiring people to take positive action to create high-quality, inclusive and accessible earn and learn opportunities for all. Today's episode is delivered in collaboration with Youth Futures Foundation, the national what works centre for youth employment with a specific focus on marginalized young people. It aims to create a society where every young person can achieve good work by finding out what works and driving change in policy and practice. This episode is part of a mini-series supporting the Make It an Apprenticeship campaign, and it dives into how employers can create better opportunities for people to enter the workforce by using apprenticeships and focuses on a simple but powerful question. What if more entry-level roles were apprenticeships? I'm joined today by a very special guest, Stephen Wilde from Southbourne Rubber. Stephen is not only known for the ability to transform businesses, but he does this through a strong commitment to skills and apprenticeships. He is an expert in how to make a true success of apprenticeship programs in small and medium-sized enterprises, and is a published author of the book Growing and Retaining Apprentices in SMEs. Stephen, it is great to see you here today. It's a pleasure to be invited and a pleasure to be here. Thank you. Stephen, you've been at SBR for around 10 years, and during that time you've transformed the business. What did you inherit when you joined and what made skills such a priority for you?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

A really interesting question. And to be honest, it's going to take a moment to answer it. So I actually joined on a part-time role to close the business down. The group of companies that owned the business had bought a building opposite and they wanted to expand into it. Within that, there was a company, and my first job was to close that company down. I walked into the business ten years ago. There were seven people, very aging workforce, not as aging as the equipment, because that was out of something of the 1950s and 1960s. I'd never seen such just clapped-out machinery in my life, sort of a backbeaten workforce on a three-day week, as I said before. And you know, it really did need closing down. That was the bottom line. And I thought as soon as I can do this, I had a six-month contract. I thought, if I can close this down in three months, I'll be doing everyone a power of good. In my second week at the uh at Sabbourne Rubber, uh, which was a rubber manufacturing company, which I should I should explain, rubber and elastomers for aerospace and defence, um, it was tr turning over a meager $365,000 a year, making a small profit. The previous owners had had had it as a lifestyle business and basically put no investment into the into the business. Um I was uh going about my business closing the business down uh when I stumbled upon the fact that uh that they had some approvals for um aerospace customers, and the first one I found was approved for Airbus, and I couldn't quite believe it. I had this A4 piece of paper crumpled up and and and sort of scratched and what have you. Um and you know, to me it kind of opened the a door of opportunity. So the rest of the day I spent hunting around and searching for other uh accreditations and approvals, and by the end of the day I'd I'd found 12. So I went down to the down to the road to where Wilkinson was, which was still open at the time, and I bought 12 A4 frames, and I pinned them on the wall behind my desk. Um, and uh, you know, that was that was a statement, and I remember walking about, pacing about, looking at the approvals, thinking, there's a business here. You know, there there is actually a business, you know. I wonder if they really understand what it is. Um I think about two days later the chairman of the companies came along and said, Oh, how's how's the uh closing down of the business going? And I said, Yeah, you know, I I'm making making plans and all the rest of it. And I and I turned around to him and I said, you know, do you understand what this business is? And he sort of turned round nonchalantly and he pointed through the window and he said, Is it the machinery? And I said, Have you have you seen the machinery? It's it's clapped how, it's leaking oil, it's it's it's on its last song and dance sort of thing. I said, No, it's not the machinery. He said, Um is it the people? And I said, Look, look at the browbeaten people that are here. Honestly, it's not the people. Uh and he said, Well, I don't know, stop wasting my time, what is it? I turned round and I said, Look at that. I said, that is is a million pound business. I said, that is if I was a millionaire, it would take me ten years and millions of pounds to get to get those accreditations. I said, There's a real business here, I'm sure of it. So within within a heartbeat, being the man the years, um, he then doubled my workload effectively. So, in line with me uh closing the business down, I then had to write a five-year business plan which was to present to the shareholders um to sit to see which one way. Anyway, you can get you can guess where it went because obviously ten years later I'm on the MD of um Southbourne Rubber. So I got approval to uh move the business on. So this takes us to a fact where you know I wanted to understand exactly what the business was. So I went out to the top five customers who weren't the biggest customers in the world with with only a small turnover, but I was very surprised to find out that every single one of the customers said you deliver on time, your quality's great, we wish we had more suppliers for you, but they only took sort of one or two parts at the time. So there was a great foundation there for something, and and really the key to that was was going to be sales. And as much as I come from a sales background and and things like that, and technical and IT, I was not of aerospace or anything in mind. So we needed you know new talent and new ideas, and we couldn't actually afford anyone because anyone that was a seasoned sales professional was going to cost us tens of thousands of pounds. And we weren't losing money, but we certainly weren't making money. We were literally, you know, if we if we came in all square at the end of the month, it was a it was a you know a happy time sort of thing. Um and bear in mind that when you're with an SME, it's all about your operating profit and your net profit, cash is king, um, and and and you know, all of those things employed. So I I've always wanted to take on apprentices, and I and I thought that this could be a way forward. Um, and uh Julie set about trying to, you know, break break break the seal, as it were, to to try and uh you know go out and get an apprentice. Um we went out to a local company and uh we we had several people come back uh with with uh CVs. We interviewed some people um and one of them was uh was a 19-year-old um stacking shelves in Waitrose at the time, who played rugby uh for haven't, and um he dutifully became the first apprentice that we had for sales, and he joined us and did a level three um apprenticeship apprenticeship. Um he like all the all the apprentices took about six months to find his feet um and then you know started to grow into the role, soak up the knowledge, and you know, he's never looked back since.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Fascinating. And I I have to admit I'm a little bit surprised. I I had in my head as you started explaining what you walked into that your first apprentice would be an engineering apprentice or a or a technician on on the kit. But but you went straight in for sales uh because that was the need and there was a cost benefit. How did you go about identifying which apprenticeship standards might be the right ones or or actually what the priority of recruitment was going to be?

SPEAKER_00 8:35

I'm a big fan of driving a business. You know, to me, if you if you're creating sales, you're putting logs into the steam engine to generate steam, to generate traction, to generate speed, and and without those chunks of coal, logs, whatever you want to call it, the the steam train just grinds to a halt. We were a company in desperate need of sales effectively and and that sort of momentum forward. So to me, it was always about generating that, and the way we did that was was through apprenticeships. So sales generated you know was was so um great that we needed to invest in a sales administrator because we were overwhelming the uh the company, the quality systems, and everything else. And and with what we were doing, supplying into aerospace and defence, the the you need to keep control of the system, and to do that we needed um an administrative assistant. So again, I went out, I took on the second apprentice a year later. So that was it was effectively the snowball effect. So taking on these two apprentices, um, you know, suddenly we'd we'd kind of you know halved the the the the average age of the company as well, and we have all these new thoughts and things going through. And from that point onwards, when we took on yet more apprentices, the apprenticeship the apprentices were teaching the apprentices. So we'd kind of cross the Rubicon, we crossed that speed hump as it as it was, that really difficult thing where I'm as a as a 60-year-old trying to teach a 20-year-old, you know, the meaning of life. It it got a lot simpler.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

And I think that's great. And I and I think my you know, one of my takeaways already from this conversation is when we talk about apprenticeships, we quite often default to they are a technical route of qualification. And actually, just from where you've started, you know, it was I'm going to bring in someone from a sales perspective initially, and then somebody to support that sales. So we're already creating that ecosystem with it within SBR. Yeah. I think when we take that then to the next the next step, where did you go next? So you've got your first two apprentices on board, you're building your sales and your quality assurance piece. What was the next step in that apprenticeship journey of SBR?

SPEAKER_00 10:48

So it I think it'll sound really logical, actually. So we did we did sales administration, and then it was all about engineering because obviously we were generating a lot more sales. By this time, you know, we'd moved from 2016, we were 2019. Um, we'd grown the company from 300,000 to um 850,000, um, which is which is no small set. You've doubled the size of the company, you know, in in three, four years. Um we'd with 14 people, so we doubled the workforce as well. And um we had we took on uh three apprentices in engineering effectively on that year as well, and so we had a lot more skills um transition as well. And they were doing a mixture of level twos initially, but they crossed to level three um and did level threes um throughout. Um, and uh we've we've got two of those um still with working with us today.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Fantastic, which which goes to that retention piece, and yeah, I I think we mentioned earlier that yeah, uh as a published author, and and we've got a copy here of how to grow and retain apprentices within SMEs, yeah. Um so well worth a read if if people get the opportunity to. I think when you start to think about that journey and you've you've gone from 300,000 to 600,000, seven employees to 14, two to four of them are now apprentices. What impact did that have on the culture of the organization as as it started to prepare for what had been quite a bleak future? You know, you'd been bought into to close things down, and now suddenly you're growing, you're doubling in size, you've got young people coming in and developing.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

I I I think to be honest, it's uh you know, I I uh use the word tsunami a lot in my life, but it it did start sort of an avalanche or a tsunami, if you like, because you know what we were doing, we were creating this wonderful culture where we have uh a group of young people that uh you know the the great thing with with young people is they haven't been told no and they can't do it. You know, they they're open-minded, that there's nothing they can't do because they haven't been told by society or or by anyone else that they can't do it, and I think that's a freedom that that we kind of we kind of lose. But you know, we've managed to tap into that and enhance it. And I think that you know what we've what we would we're doing, we had effectively apprentices that were going out and winning us the business. We had apprentices that were organizing us as a company and growing, but growing us in a way that was sustainable. So we were we were growing as much as we were growing muscle and skin, we were bone growing bone as well. Those are big opportunities for you in life. So you know, you can move to another position, you can become a manager. And all of the people that have worked for us they've they've only known that. So, you know, there is a there is a uh sort of a uh a fear not fear a fierce determination to get to that next step to move the to move the business on. And as we've taken on, you know, we've taken on over 30 apprentices now, um, and 100% of them have stayed with us, finished their level three, level four, um some of them have moved on, but we have now you know 16, 18 of them still with us, current and former apprentices, which is which is absolutely great. And one of the reasons that you know we joined the the 5% club, you know, we were gold member for for the two previous years and a platinum member this year, which is a a great you know honour and a great organization to be part of.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

You've very casually just dropped in some amazing numbers there that you've employed over 30 apprentices, that you've retained over half of those. Yes. And we were talking earlier, and you know, 50% of your workforce have been through your apprenticeship programmes and uh and have stayed in the business. So, in terms of talking to our audience and and kind of giving away some of your trade secrets, what is the secret to retaining apprentices?

SPEAKER_00 14:42

I come from a a far a farming background. Uh I was born in the Falkland Islands, I was brought up on a farm, and I did I was a farmer for 10 years of my life. And and I think that you know um on a farm things are are are different, you know. I really feel for the farmers in in the UK, but that's another story, you know. We can we can go there. And and the reason that I called it growing and retaining was was literally uh for for the for that you know that base level. Um if you if you take uh an apprentice and and you take it on as an SME, um, you know, it's it's like seeds, you don't scatter them on the table here with with no soil, you don't suddenly pour water on them every six weeks and expect it to grow. You don't let you know weeds come in and destroy the the tender shoots sort of thing. So I I like to use the word ecosystem and and so I think you have to create a really good ecosystem for the young people. And where it becomes more challenging and difficult, I think, for SMEs, especially if you're an aging SME and you've got an aging workforce and you've got this 30-40 years difference, then you know, Gen Z is completely different. You do have to realise that these people are are cast differently to you, probably as you were to you, you know, your parents and and your grandparents as well. Um so I think there has to be a sort of a mutual amount of respect about how modern people are connected to society, how you know a mobile phone is is a is a key part of their lives, how social media is is very important to them and things like that. But saying that, there's there still are the basics. So I think that you know there is a meeting together, a melding of minds, if you like, between you know the Gen Z and the and the baby boomers. But as I said before, it's it is difficult to go in there and just take on your first apprentice if you haven't got apprentices and you've got an aging workforce to make that young person feel safe, feel secure, and and make them feel part of what they're doing. The other thing that I do is that I have a I have an open door policy. Basically, I don't have an office. I sit in the middle of the office and I always say to my staff, you know, my door is always open, they always laugh and walk off, you know. But I'm but I'm there. I I I I walk around the business, I'm part of it, I hear everything that's going on, and I want to be because I want to be connected to it. Um I'm not one of these people that put myself in a in an office and and no one goes to. And to me, that's the way that I make the business work for me and hopefully make it work for for everyone else. And if you look at our bottom line, you look at the people that we've taken on, then it's a success because this year we'll turn over four and a half million and you know make a good profit for the shareholders. So the recipe is correct, it's right, and it works.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

And I think that's so important creating the right environment for success, and I think that is led from the top down. Um, we were talking before the podcast uh and before we started recording today uh uh around some some of your success stories. Um, and and one of those success stories is linked to this next question, I think. Um, you know, how have you continued the development journey once your apprentices have finished their initial programme? Yeah. How how have you nurtured that talent and and supported their personal development?

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Effectively, there's there's no bounds to the to the to their development. So a lot uh most of the apprentices come in and they will do a level three. Um some have done a level four straight off, but that's there's the sort of the the unusual ones. But we never we never stop people from learning. Having the cleverest people you can in your organization is is only a benefit to you. And I think if you're using, you know, uh introducing new skills, new learning, new education, it's great for the business. You know, you always want to surround yourself with the cleverest people you can. Rule number one in management. Try and make you try and make your job role redundant and you're doing a good thing, I think, as a manager. Um, you know, so what we've done is we've encouraged people. So uh if we take our our first apprentice that we were talking about earlier on, he did a level three, he did a level five, um, he did some intermediate ones in between. So, you know, he's got a a a great level of of education under his belt, plus the fact he's got, you know, 10 years worth of uh experience um and bringing in multi-million pound orders and and and everything else. And so, you know, we we're uh really, really pleased that our first two apprentices um are now both directors in the company, you know, at the tender age of 26 and and 28, you know, which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Uh and an amazing testament to the success of the work that you and your team um have have done within the organization. I'm just conscious that we promised that we would only keep people for 5% of their working day, but there's I think some a couple of key questions that I would I I'd like to ask, which are perhaps more focused on providing some guidance and some information to our listeners. Um there's sometimes a perception that apprenticeships are easier for large employers.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

From your experience, how realistic is that? I'd kind of agree with that. You know, um a large employer has got an HR department, they've they've got you know uh a collective mass that you can't you can't sort of you know uh consider. If you're an SME, you know, if you if you take if I go back to 2017, you know, I was I was I was managing director, bottle washer, um teamaker, um you know, take the bins out, close open the building up, close the building down. I think there's a definite advantage for for larger uh businesses to find their way through the very complex I would call uh apprentice uh programme.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

So taking all that on board, how did you overcome those challenges? Because clearly for SBR taking on apprenticeships and working through that development route has worked. So, so so just talk me through a little bit of that journey on how you overcame some of those challenges.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

I think I think a a portion of it is is is being bloody-minded and and persisting with the government website. Um and um just just communicating to people, I think, you know, not being afraid to go out and ask, because you if you can't do something and you're not a subject matter expert in it, is is is asking someone for help. Um I think finding the help is another challenge as well, because I don't think it's it's readily there. You know, I I'm part of an organization now that is there to help.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

So the landscape for starting down the apprenticeship journey can can be a little bit challenging. Uh and we've spoken a little bit about asking people for help. But obviously, the apprenticeship landscape is is more than just the employer and the apprentices. Uh, we have training providers and other organizations. Can you talk me a little bit about how you have engaged with the wider apprenticeship ecosystem?

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Learning providers are key to to the equation as well, and you're quite right to to ask that question. Uh and I think initially we we really found it hard to find a provider that was, you know, up to the task almost of of what we wanted to deliver on it. We uh I mean, bearing in mind that we're we're talking about probably the the couple of years after um COVID, which was turmoil. For the education system, anyway, so I I kind of I kind of take that. What's come out of that is that we've found a training provider now. They are proved themselves above and beyond anyone that we've used before. So I'm a I'm a big fan of them, and I would recommend them, and I do recommend them to people that want to move forward. And you know, they've they've given us a a learning uh landscape that is that is really positive. Um and you know the results we're getting are fantastic. So I think it is about finding a learning provider that works for you as an SME. Um you know, take some take some advice from people that have used maybe learning providers before because that's that's his key. I think word of mouth is far stronger than a than Google's five stars, um, and uh and and and and and take it from there, yeah. And and you know, there are organizations, as I said, you know, like the 5% club, etc., that can help you and put you in the right direction.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Which which great advice. Uh I'm sure our listeners will take that on board. A couple of technical questions um around the levy. Quite often, when when I talk with SMEs and when I talk with other employees, that the levy is seen as this big scary thing that either I don't pay it and or I don't know how to access it. So, from an SBR perspective, do you pay the levy now? Um, but previously, how did you access levy funding for apprenticeships if you weren't paying the levy?

SPEAKER_00 23:26

It's a good question. So we we've done a done a couple of things. Uh one is we we we do pay the levy now. Um you know, we're an SME standalone, but we are part of a group of companies, which then puts us under the umbrella of the of the of the of the levies. What we did before that was though, we used we used funds from uh the local university uh who had who had extra. And there's a a number of organisations around and a number of websites that you can go to to access spare funds as well, which I would encourage everyone. I would encourage businesses that have got spare funds to put them on put them open so that other people can use them. Funding has never been a problem, and yes, you have to pay uh you know a tiny amount of money, but it's five percent of the education cost, which is nothing for bringing a young person through and seeing them thrive and drive your business forward.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

And again, I think it's if you don't ask, you don't get uh as a lot of organisations do have levy funding available for for use within their supply chain and local businesses. Okay, so as we kind of start to pull all of this together, um let's talk a little bit about the business case. You know, we we work in an in a world where return on investment and shareholder value is is is key, whether that is to to to the stock market or to to family owners. What would you say is the strongest business argument for making entry-level role apprenticeships available?

SPEAKER_00 24:51

I think it'll be a little bit different for different organizations, but for for us, for Southbourne Rubber, um you know, we can't just go to the the supply chain of employees and and pick one off the shelf. You know, it it's far better for us, far stronger, if we take someone young and we we mould them, no pun intended for rubber moulding, uh we mould them to to our organisation and our business because you know we we we we grow someone uh to you know the shape and form that we want. Take a young apprentice that's a sponge and they soak up all of the information and and and that that you put into them, then you know you you get you get your payback in spades.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

And when you look now for the next hire, or you look at where your skills gaps are, do you start as an organization from the perspective of why can't this be an apprenticeship, or do you look at it from a perspective of it will be an apprenticeship?

SPEAKER_00 25:50

As as we grow and we've had dynamic growth as an organization, we have to helicopter some skills in. We can't get over that. But saying that, when we helicopter a skill in, then immediately we want to put an apprentice underneath to soak up that skill to bring that age level down of that that person that's probably going to be with us for you know maybe five, six years and then retire. So I th I think there's there's a definite, you know, why why couldn't we have an apprentice there? And I'm a big fan of of looking over the horizon. So if I see a job that's coming up, I like to have the apprentice in place 12 months before you know we we need to actually see him at the he, her, at the at the coalface sort of thing, because then I think we're giving the apprentice the you know a good amount of time to make an impact on the business, and that's not to say that the impact is 12 months, that's that's not true at all. Because I I think we start to get a benefit out of them in three or four months, and sometimes before that.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Stephen, you have shared some amazing insights um today, and I think we're all a little bit in awe of the journey that SBR has been on, and I am sure there is more than one listener just wanting to ask a little bit more about what was it like to be born in the Falkland Islands. But if an employer is listening today and has an entry-level vacancy coming up, and they are considering it to be an apprenticeship, what's what's the message that you would like other SMEs to take away from today's conversation?

SPEAKER_00 27:14

A put a positive feeling toward apprenticeships, I I believe, you know, is the is the message that I try and give. You know, they have given our business you know the the the way for the way forward um and the ability to you know take on take on a very competitive workplace and and move the business forward. And you know, without them, without their thinking out of the box, without their new thinking, um, you know, we would we would still be in a in a much lesser place. So my my advice is you know take take the chance, invest in the apprentice, invest your time in them, and you will get it back, you know, fourfold, tenfold. Um, and and that's what we've done as well.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

I think that's what's come clear to me from this conversation. You know, my background tends to be from large organizations rather than SMEs. But my takeaway from our conversation today is that while it can be quite daunting to take that first step, the first step is the hardest one to take. And once you're on the journey, there is help, there is support, there is guidance to be able to really benefit from the diversity of thought, the enthusiasm that comes with bringing on new perspectives and diversity. When you get it right, you have an apprentices who stays on a journey and becomes a director of the organization as part of it. Stephen, thank you so much for your time and your insight today. It has been a great conversation, and I am sure our listeners have got a lot of value out of it. Um, so thank you very much. Today's episode of Take Five was brought to you in collaboration with Youth Futures Foundation, working on their mission to ensure that more young people can secure and thrive in good work. Thank you so much for giving us 5% of your working day.