As his two-year stint as CFA president draws to a close and the association stands ready to welcome Alan McEwan of F Ball and Co into this role, Carl looks back with considerable pride over the past two years.
As my two-year stint as CFA president draws to a close and we stand ready to welcome Alan McEwan of F Ball and Co into this role, I look back with considerable pride over the last two years – but mostly with gratitude. Gratitude to our members and to this wonderful industry for your support, friendship and professionalism, which continue to make the contract flooring sector very special in my opinion.
Two years ago, we had plenty of challenges and uncertainties ahead of us, and we still do. But I am sure that we can face these with a high degree of confidence, because of one thing that has been continually reinforced to me. That is that in a number of key areas, such as developing standards and guidance, trying to encourage newcomers into the industry and pushing for improved conditions on site, CFA and our members are amongst the leaders in the flooring sector and strive to influence the construction industry as a whole.
The recruitment crisis has been one that I have been keen to work on right from the start and I was delighted when we launched our Future Fitters campaign. If we are not able to attract sufficient numbers of people to join our industry, either already possessing the relevant skills or prepared to learn those skills, through appropriate training, then there is not a very strong future in prospect. This is critical work, and I hope that, through supporting apprenticeships, delivery of quality training at FITA and the STEM Ambassadors programme with schools, colleges and workers looking to retrain, we have made a start on this.
Looking for ways to reinforce the quality message has been something else I have been keen to push, not just for floor fitters, but for everyone working for a flooring contractor, from senior management, through business administration, sales, marketing and all other roles within an organisation. Each of these is as important as the next, and each one should be valued and receive the same level of attention to allow the team as a whole to move forward.
I view these points as very much related, since it is important to drive up quality at the sharp end – within floorlaying itself – and a committed workforce, good training and excellent career opportunities are required throughout contracting and at all levels of our businesses. Every company is a team, with many layers. Weaknesses at any level can lead to us failing to provide customer satisfaction, which of course is our goal.
Our Winter Warning Campaign has been a regular feature of the last few winters and has been an important part of our efforts to improve site conditions. As a contractor, I believe strongly in the importance of this and also that the CFA is right to be making a lot of noise about it and our other site conditions campaign including the recently launched ‘Clear Our Work Space’. That is also underpinned by the ‘responsible No’ to explain when we simply cannot fit in unsuitable site conditions. This is a phrase developed by the CFA, and one that I have used and have found very empowering.
To me these campaigns are about providing a service to our members in the form of a real member benefit which gives them something they can use on site to make their lives easier, to make jobs run more smoothly, avoiding animosity and ensuring the job gets done to the best of the contractor’s ability, resulting in a happy customer and hopefully the contractor getting repeat business.
These tools are among the benefits which we make available to members, and joining the CFA is the only way to access them in full. Your membership also of course helps make all our campaigns possible – Future Fitters, our work on sustainability, all our training activities and the many publications that we produce to help support the industry – to name just a few.
I am delighted that we continue to support and develop the publications
that are available to download from www.cfa.org.uk. Taken together these amount to an amazing amount of work, research and expertise distilled into documents for the benefit of our members and indeed the wider industry, since many of the key ones are available as free downloads to site visitors (although some documents require a free registration).
From the CFA Guide to Contract Flooring to the Sustainability Guide and from the Members’ Handbook to the Training Guide, you will not find a more complete resource anywhere else serving the contract flooring industry. It is worth pointing out that CFA membership is required to access the full range of information on the site, including technical guidance documents, recordings of recent webinars and the materials which make up the site conditions toolkits.
Another big issue is that of sustainability of course, and I am very proud of the leading role that the CFA has continued to play over the past two years, publishing two editions of the Guide to Sustainability during my tenure. I am aware both of the scale of the challenge which we still face as a sector, but I am also constantly impressed by the commitment of our members to play their part in the drive to Net Zero Carbon.
Thank you again for your support during my time as President of the CFA. I am keen to continue my work on the Council as that for me is what the CFA is all about – working together to bring about improvements on a wide range of issues, which will ultimately help make business more successful and profitable for all flooring contractors.
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