Offsite Alliance is a membership organisation for the offsite construction industry which has recently collaborated with Ethos Young Leaders. It aims to promote awareness of offsite construction techniques that are driving a new era of sustainable development, growth, and productivity, enabling the delivery of high quality precision engineered homes for the future.
The Offsite Alliance’s Strategy and Collaboration Manager, Ele George, was introduced to Ethos via an existing Ethos partner. Both parties quickly uncovered an alignment in their values and desire to create meaningful work opportunities for young people. Once a partnership had been established, a work package was created by Ele which informed Young Leaders (YLs) that Offsite Alliance (OA) could support creative and talented individuals to support the development of a website to the specifications that the OA had. The first few challenges of this project were then presented, demonstrating a need for a collective collaboration between YLs to establish the first initial steps of the development.
During the first stages of the collaboration the project was stalled due to a lack of necessary skills among the YLs cohort at that time. This was until two IT enthusiastic Young Leaders, Brendon Morris and Oscar Rudd, came on board and volunteered to take on the opportunity.
Brendon has a great passion for technology, having a diverse background in IT, graphic design, video editing and on many different software packages ranging from 3D Modelling to game design. Oscar is an experienced IT professional who has worked in a multitude of IT related industries since leaving college, including but not limited to: software engineering, website development, games development, and 3D modelling/rigging.
Oscar and Brendon got to work straight away brainstorming ideas on how to lay the groundwork for the website. They then started on the development of a tiered membership system, one of the key requirements given by OA. This particular feature was a key priority as it gave paying members access to exclusive services.
After the tier system had been successfully created, the Young Leaders team began work on the front end design specifications for the website. This involved creating a new homepage, an “about us” section and a partners page. The following two weeks after completing this milestone, the team began to work on website maintenance. They ensured the site was correctly formatted including fonts, text alignment, frames and pages. This made sure it was easy to navigate, as well as meeting the client’s design specifications. The Young Leaders team made sure that the website was fully fluent in operation with no glitches.
The OA were impressed with the results that Oscar and Brendon’s hard work had produced.
Due to time constraints the Young Leaders team had to hand back the website’s design to OA so that last minute design features could be implemented for an immediate launch. However, all was not lost as Oscar and Brendon’s combined hard work paid off, and Offsite Alliance were able to develop further the work that the Young Leaders team had produced. After the maintenance work and other essential website upkeep, the website was eagerly put to work and the project was classed as completed.
Ele George, Work Package Owner for Offsite Alliance
“Supporting young people is of vital importance to me, and following an introduction from an industry colleague, partnering with an organisation whose values align was a ‘no brainer’. For various reasons, including COVID, pressure on the schooling system and lack of investment in skills and training, young people don’t have it easy when entering the world of work. Providing real life work experience enabled through the Kickstart scheme is one way I felt I could help. In addition, I’ve been able to highlight to the YLs the opportunities within value led and sustainable businesses that are out there. I would like to wish Brendon and Oscar (and all the Young Leaders!) every success for the future.”
Reflecting on the project, Oscar says:
“I learned a valuable amount in the process. I was able to diversify my repertoire in web development through first hand experience from learning on the job. I was also able to increase my networking skills via reaching out to the internal team of Offsite Alliance.”
Brendon expressed:
“This project was a massive learning experience for Young Leaders. I feel we have handled the challenge well. It was certainly challenging and I grew a lot through the experience. A well detailed insight was formed from talking amongst the Young leaders team. We have both learned a lot about teamwork and partnering with other companies and individuals.”
“In the spirit of the Young Leaders initiative this has been a great project for our Young Leaders to work on. Working from a basic income and allowing young people to get involved in work and experiences that they never would be able to do in a normal work environment, following their purpose and passions, in a safe and well supported environment allows the individuals to grow in confidence and ability.”
Huge thanks to Offsite Alliance for working with Young Leaders, they were able to learn a lot about the world of work and themselves through this project.