Property solutions provider Fortem is opening the doors to its second specialist repairs and maintenance training centre later this month.
Located in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, the Northern 4Life Academy will help meet the growing and changing needs of its own employees, as well as those of housing organisations and other suppliers to the sector in the north of England.
Fortem has invested £1m in the centre, through which it expects to train more than 2,500 people each year, including more than 300 members of the communities it serves through its contracts with Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council (RMBC) and other clients in the north.
The launch of the Northern 4Life Academy follows the success of Fortem’s Midlands 4Life Academy, based in Birmingham which since 2016 has trained more than 20,000 people from across the Midlands, racking up in excess of 131,000 training hours.
Both the Midlands 4Life Academy and the new Northern 4Life Academy are part of Fortem’s ‘growing our own’ initiative, which plays a key role in shaping the organisation’s culture. For example, the organisation currently has more than 80 apprentices, all of whom will receive training at one of the centres.
Last year, Fortem invested over £1.1m into training its own workforce, and supported the training and development of 80 members of clients’ in-house teams.
Ann-Marie Steele, Head of Academies & Learning at Fortem, said: “Our 4life Academies offer industry-leading training and play a key role in enabling Fortem, our clients and our supply chain to meet future service needs and continued growth. By thinking differently and challenging the way we deliver training and learning, we want to inspire people to achieve their full potential.
“A second Academy running alongside our existing one will enable us to deliver more training, to more people, reaching and leaving a legacy in even more of the communities we work in.”
Andrew Exley, Managing Director, Scarbrook Plumbing and Heating Ltd and Scarbook Electrical Ltd, based in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, said: “Fortem’s partnership approach can be best demonstrated by the support we received from their Midlands 4Life Academy Academy. It has not only delivered training courses to improve our staff, but also helped us find quality candidates for apprenticeships.”
Fortem’s Northern Academy will be operational from September 2019, with an official launch on 3rd October.
