Birkwood (company profile)

FOR Sally Ramsgill, being a wife, mother, and part time hairdresser was more than enough to keep her happy.

She helped with the invoicing and administration of her husband’s plant hire business, but freely admits she had no entrepreneurial aspirations whatsoever.

“I never thought I had any entrepreneurial spirit,” she laughs when interviewed.

“I had my hairdressing and couldn’t see myself doing anything else.”

But diversification of the Wakefield family business Birkwood Plant Hire saw Sally not only further establish the training arm of the business but grow its turnover from £29,000 to more than £500,000 in 12 months.

Today Birkwood Plant Training offers a wide range of Construction Plant Competence Scheme (CPCS) accredited courses as well as some others from scaffolding to fork lift truck training. Birkwood is also one of the only training centres in the UK to offer a mini digger course.

Clients include some of the region’s biggest construction firms together with utilities firms, individual contractors and social enterprises and Sally says there are now plans to build an on-site testing and training centre following the winning of a two year battle with Wakefield Council to get planning permission.

“At the moment we train on site but we want to bring everything in house,” she explains.

“Unlike other trainers, we don’t have the expense of hiring in the machines as we already have them in the business. We’re also looking at training up some of our drivers as instructors.”

Confident and obviously passionate about the business, Sally is the first to admit that she was terrified about the prospect of heading a new venture.
“Most people thought I was mad to give up my job in hairdressing to go join the very male dominated world of construction – it’s not the most obvious career progression!” she jokes.

“I have to admit I was terrified myself but my husband Mark had every confidence in me and it was his support and conviction that made me believe I could make a difference to this company.”

The plant hire business already offered some training opportunities after Mark qualified as a trainer himself so he could train his own staff. It didn’t take long before he realised there was a huge demand for quality training within the wider construction industry and so set up the training division in 2005. However, time restraints meant that he wasn’t able to grow the business as he’d hoped.

Despite having no experience in construction and no desire at that time to join the business full time, Mark recognised Sally’s potential and after 12 months of persuasion she decided to give it a go.

“My main concern was my lack of experience with management systems and procedures,” recalls Sally.

“I knew where I wanted the business to be but had no idea how to go about it.”

To help overcome her skills gap she signed up to Performance Plus – a programme of seven workshops targeted at the construction industry to help companies implement proper systems and procedures with the ultimate aim of preparing them for Investor in People (IIP) assessment. In less than a year Birkwood had achieved IIP.

In addition to the management side of the business, Sally had to quickly get to grips with the technical aspect of plant hire and construction. Although she had grown up on a farm and been married to Mark for 13 years, Sally’s knowledge of the plant business was limited.

Determined to address that she started by researching the areas she needed to get to grips with initially and soon found that she was not only speaking to her peers confidently but that she found a real passion for the company and the industry in general.

Her next step was to investigate what funding opportunities there were available. It was through this that she came across Wakefield Homebuilder – an organisation that aims to enable unemployed and disadvantaged young people to access paid jobs in the construction industry. Wakefield Homebuilder offered funding for individuals to complete NVQ level 2 in plant operation which Sally was keen to take advantage of. Although she admit that she left her first meeting with them thinking that they may as well have been “speaking Japanese”12 months later she was delivering a presentation at one of their events.

Indeed giving something back to the community and promoting the construction industry are two subjects Sally is as passionate about as she is her business.

She now sits on the partnership board of Wakefield Homebuilder and is involved in Promoting Construction West Yorkshire, which is a group of companies in the construction industry who get together every quarter to address issues within training and development. As a testiment to this commitment, one of Birkwood’s employees recently won an award in recognition of the way he overcame ill health and significant adversity to carve out a career as a plant instructor/assessor.

Part of that commitment to the industry is making it safer. One of Sally’s key objectives is to upskill construction workers, making them safer and more productive which offers obvious benefits to businesses as well as helping to create a more positive image of the sector.

Birkwood is now able to offer a great deal of subsidised training due to Sally’s proactive approach to seeking out funding. This is important as it enables smaller companies to access training which not only helps them improve the way they work but allows them to pitch for larger contracts due to their qualified workforce.

Never a company to stand still, Sally has explored business opportunities within other sector specific markets, registering with Energy and Utility Skills, the Sector Skills Council for the electricity, gas, waste management and water industries.

Its mini digger course has already secured a contract with United Utilities to deliver training to more than 400 individuals over the next three years.

“I am incredibly proud of what I have achieved in such a short period of time and I don’t intend to stop here. I will continue to drive the business forward at an equally rapid pace and hopefully do my bit towards improving the profile of the construction industry into the bargain,” she adds.

“I have many goals for the business including moving into the North East and securing at least 2 more large contracts from national companies. It’s my 40th birthday next year and I’d love to celebrate it by hitting that £1m target!”