PODCAST: Builders of Talent

Episode 2, Builders of Talent

We’re all having to be far more creative when it comes to attracting and retaining the right talent for our businesses now into the future. So, in this episode, we’re going to be talking about what it means to build your own talent, not via the traditional grad schemes or apprenticeship programs, but with professionals who are really motivated to learn, looking at those in their early to mid-careers with an average of two to five years’ experience. Focusing on how we invest in their development to build talent for the future.

Our Hosts Georgina Hunt, the Talent Director and Board Director of ManpowerGroup UK and Georgia Byrne, Strategic Clients Director, Talent Solutions are joined today by our guest Jimmy Williams, Group Project Management Capability Manager, Babcock International.

In this episode Builders of Talent, we discuss the challenges Babcock International faced with resource shortages around some of their key locations. Babcock’s locations are mostly further afield than your higher concentrated cities i.e., London, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. The challenge Babcock faced is that it is hard to draw in such specialised talent in those areas. Alongside graduate intakes, apprentice intakes, direct recruitment, and utilisation of contingent and agency staff, Babcock had to try something different and complimentary: Train to Fit.

Babcock International Group Train to Fit has recently been nominated as a Finalist in the Developmental Programme of the Year at the Association for Project Management Festival of Education and Research.

Some highlights discussed in this podcast:

  • How do we find the right characteristics over and above the content of their CV.?
  • Finding the person with the right behaviours
  • Looking at routes to competence
  • Look at deploying, learning through creation and curation of new resources
  • Recognising and developing resource supply solutions that we probably wouldn’t have investigated i.e., Train to Fit


Jimmy Williams Bio:
A product of an apprenticeship, Jimmy sees the value in developing and enabling people while creating an environment that fosters personal and professional growth. Having worked in an array of functions such as Production, Project Management and Business Improvement, he understands the importance of building diverse and competent organisational capability through contemporary and sustainable methods.

His role as a Project Management Capability Manager is dedicated to delivering value strategically and tactically through the development of an organisation’s most important aspect, its people.

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