FAQs

What’s all this BESS about, then?

Hopefully the videos, presentations, downloads and demos on this site give you an insight into the BESS programme. The FAQs below are intended to cover some of the additional points:

Is this another apprenticeship scheme?

Aren’t other organisations already tackling the skills gap?

Is BESS only for contractors? Or consultants?

What is the cost for schools and colleges to participate?

What commitment do you expect from businesses that subscribe?

Why is BESS a 10-year programme?

What is behaviour change methodology?

Who are the Hot500?

What do businesses get in return for their subscription?

What is your privacy policy?

What’s your track record in construction?

 

Apprentices

We don’t place apprentices, we don’t offer apprenticeships and we don’t promote one career path over another. We DO bring together all the good work that is being done in the sector to promote careers in construction, including apprenticeships, degrees, work placements and good old-fashioned conversations.

 

Skills

Other organisations are doing incredible things to tackle the skills gap, including visiting schools, recruiting apprentices and offering qualifications. We are bringing all those pathways under one umbrella and putting the control back into the hands of children so they can choose their own journey. By offering all this through an online platform, we are also actively engaging schools and parents.

 

Inclusion

BESS is for everyone that operates in the built environment. In fact, we can only create the complete journey for children if the whole sector is represented. If your organisation can demonstrate careers, expertise, projects, products, qualifications, role models or outreach, we need you!

 

Charges

We don’t charge anything for educators, so that there is nothing to prevent them participating. All our coding, hosting, development and account management costs are covered by the businesses that subscribe to BESS. See the full pricing structure here.

 

Commitment

Depending on the subscription level that your business chooses, we expect commitment of approximately one hour per week, shared across your WHOLE organisation (which should mean that individuals are only spending 5 minutes or so). Once we have all the basic information to get you up and running (your logo, photographs, staff details etc), you can then review what you want to get out of your BESS involvement. For full details, have a look at this PDF – Subscriber Commitment

 

Change

Significant behaviour change isn’t an overnight process, and the sector has a big mountain to climb. 10 years is the generational timescale for a major behaviour change, and it aligns us with the government’s ‘Construction 2025’ strategy.

 

Methodology

Behaviour change methodology uses social marketing as an approach to develop activities aimed at changing or maintaining people’s behaviour for the benefit of individuals and society as a whole. Combining ideas from commercial marketing and the social sciences, social marketing is a proven tool for influencing behaviour in a sustainable and cost-effective way. The goal of social marketing is always to change or maintain how people behave – not what they think or how aware they are about an issue. Social marketing helps to ensure policy is based on an understanding of people’s lives, making policy goals realistic and achievable and it enables you to target your resources cost-effectively, and select interventions that have the best impact over time.

 

Hot500

The Hot 500 Hub is a peer learning social network for all young entrepreneurs. You can learn all about them here – Hot500

 

ROI

Depending on the subscription level you choose, we offer all businesses a return on your investment that includes amplifying your existing outreach activity, commercial business development tools to help you build your business, search engine optimisation improvements, text about your company and your projects written by students for students, and Corporate Social Responsibility that your staff can own. See the full list of subscriber benefits here – Subscription Levels

 

Contact

Who needs more spam in their inbox? When you subscribe, we will contact you via the online social network platform, in the same way as schools and students. We will also contact you about opportunities via the champions you identify within your own organisation (often your CSR Manager, or similar). If you sign up for our newsletter, we will send that to you by email once a quarter. We will never spam you with emails you didn’t request.

 

Board

Not very much at all! We’re behaviour change experts, with a background in significant grass-roots change programmes. But we know we wouldn’t last long without a real insight into construction, so we have a non-executive Board of Advisors to guide and support us.