This industry functions on absolutes. In a factory setting, where productivity and precision are vital, wouldn’t a person with additional needs or disabilities struggle with daily tasks? Why would a business take that risk? Evtec Automotive shows us the way; through practical adjustments and patience, by challenging our prejudices and removing the barriers in both workplace and mindset. Tom St John reports.
Factory floors are often fast-paced, they’re sometimes noisy, there are machines to operate and maintain, orders to fill, walkways and instructions to follow. Even as a visitor to a site, you often need your wits about you.
I once again find myself recalling our interview from last year, with Samantha Johnson, Founder of Avalon Home and owner of Pintail Candles. “If you’re building a product, cultural diversity is fundamental, because you need that difference of life experience to feed in from the start,” she said. “Building cultures where asking questions is encouraged is what’s going to open the door to all kinds of talent.”
Those words have really stuck with me. But how do you make a busy factory less noisy for a person sensitive to sound? How do you make machinery safe for a partially sighted or blind person? How do you make an assembly line accessible for wheelchair users? You might be able to accommodate this for visitors, but how do you do it every day for the people you employ?
Evtec Automotive is a single source, tier one supplier of assembled products, working with OEMs around the world, and around the corner. Jaguar Land Rover, Evtec’s main customer, is half an hour away in Solihull, where Managing Director, Kevin Hubbard, was engaged in a meeting when we arrived for our site visit.
We were greeted by Stuart Cleverley, Senior Key Account Manager and Will King, HR Business Partner. The pair spoke to us about how the company is supporting the automotive industry’s shift to electrification and prides itself on the way it simplifies sourcing and increases production efficiency, supplying complete assemblies to varying specifications, ready for trackside.
Using a poka-yoke (mistake-proofing) system within the assembly process, consistently high quality products are made at the Coventry site. All assemblies are manually checked before being sent to customers. A pick and pack team weighs every kit to ensure exactly the right parts are included. And for full traceability of all parts, QR code labels show the time and date of assembly.
Evtec is an impressive company, and like all our features on the winners of our Manufacturer MX Awards, it can be hard to hone in on one specific area of the operation in which they excel. Evtec was winners of our Special Recognition Award, and in this case it’s clear why.
We won’t be focussing on the products, the tech or the processes in this article, instead we’ll be looking at the people at Evtec. Over 30% are female across the entire business, and over 40% of the workforce have some form of additional need or disability.
How it started – how it’s going
Evtec has evolved from a government-run scheme for ex-servicemen and people with disabilities to a private company prioritising inclusivity and growth. “You may have heard of the scheme when it was called Remploy,” said Stuart. “It wasn’t just for automotive, it was industry wide. Unfortunately, funding ceased in 2013. Pretty much overnight, around 95% of Remploy sites were closed, which left a lot of people unemployed.”
The Arlington Group stepped in to purchase the automotive side of the scheme, bringing it under private ownership which carried on until 2021. “However, it ended up being one of the casualties of COVID,” continued Stuart. “This site here, unlike a lot of the Remploy sites, had always been profitable, but unfortunately we were dragged into administration.”
Then, in 2021, the now Chairman, David Roberts stepped in. He purchased the Coventry site, and thus, Evtec Automotive was born. All the engineering of assemblies is done under one roof, which is, understandably, a bonus for customers, that are becoming increasingly keen to keep suppliers more local.
“We’re carrying on the ethos of Remploy,” Stuart added. “Nothing changes in terms of offering people with disabilities employment. We adapt our recruitment styles. Our offices and our tooling out on the shop floor is all tailored to the individual’s needs. We also do a lot of work with schools and colleges, so that element of the business hasn’t changed.”
Through a period laced with turmoil, with the pandemic, administration and the general anguish that the automotive industry has had to go through with chip shortages, Evtec has stuck to the principles that it was founded on.
“For people that were aware of Remploy, it was a trusted name,” said Will. “It was huge in its day, but we’re just one site. We’re trying to act as a bit of an exemplar, and show other businesses what we do.”
“And we’re proud of how we do it,” added Stuart. “Forty-one per cent of the workforce are female, with increased progression into supervisory roles, which is worlds apart from where we were a few years ago. And just over 40% of our employees have some form of disability.”
Barriers in people’s minds
Staying true to the foundations of the Remploy mission is admirable. However, as mentioned at the start, how do you do that? How can you successfully employ such a large percentage of staff with additional needs in a production setting? The very question is, in fact, a product of preconceived mindset. Because in reality, barriers don’t exist in creating suitable workspaces for disabled people.
“It’s not complicated,” explained Will. “The adjustments that we make aren’t terribly expensive, they’re just common sense. People worry about health, safety or insurance, but these things are just barriers in people’s minds.”
He continued: “It’s the attitudes that people have that is the problem. People have preconceived ideas about disability, and we need to break those down. When it comes to recruitment, we try and take away barriers – we don’t do long winded, test-based interviews. We try to bring people in to give them hands on work experience. If someone can do a job and they’ve got a good attitude and the right qualities as a person, then that’s great. We don’t need to see their qualifications.”
Walking around the factory floor at Evtec showed us what Stuart and Will were talking about. It all works; it’s like any other factory floor in the UK. But some employees are in wheelchairs, some have a form of learning difficulty, some are neurodivergent. There were some younger employees accompanied by people like Cath Ball, a job coach at Evtec, but employed by Hereward College where students come for work experience.
“My role is to train SEN (special educational needs) students,” she said. “We show them how to do their role within the factory by breaking down the big tasks that are expected of them into smaller ones.” For these students, this isn’t just about work skills, it’s also about giving them more confidence in other aspects of future life.
“They come in as very unassuming, shy, not particularly streetwise young people. And by the end of their work experience they’re confident young adults.”
Cath, brimming with pride, added: “I’ve worked at Hereward College for 32 years, but the last seven as a job coach have been the most fulfilling. Seeing these young people grow and walk out of here, in some instances with full-time jobs, is a feeling you can’t beat.”
Seeing a truly diverse, equality driven factory floor is extremely humbling. To the point where our judging panel, who awarded Evtec with the Special Recognition Award at TMMX Awards, were moved to tears when they saw it all in action last year.
Stuart added: “What’s also great is a lot of people haven’t just been here for a few years; some have been with us for 20 -35 years. I think that speaks volumes to the fact that they enjoy it.”
Cath Ball pictured with students
Making it possible
After chatting with Stuart and Will in the boardroom, Kevin Hubbard, the MD of Evtec, came to join us, back from his meeting at Jaguar Land Rover. He began by adding to the swell of pride that so clearly builds within any senior person at Evtec who speaks about the company’s commitment to diversity.
“We see every student that comes through here develop,” he said. “On day one they won’t even look at you, let alone shake your hand – they’re that nervous. Coming in for work experience is a lot for any student, never mind one with a disability.”
He continued, “But as the year progresses, they really become part of the Evtec family, they become more confident and go around high-fiving people, even me!” Turning to Stuart and Will, Kevin added, “It’s just transformational, isn’t it?”
Of course Evtec would never stray from its approach, that much was clear, but it’s an automotive supplier – an industry that has suffered, so the company needs to be profitable, sustainable and competitive. “We get no funding,” added Kevin, “As an MD, I’ve got to run a business, I can’t employ everybody. But where we can, we do our best to continue a student’s working journey. For instance, with students from Coventry City Council, I’ve given them one day a week work experience. This helps on their CV, and it’s another step into wider society.”
Part of Evtec’s recovery plan was to transform the business into, as Kevin put it, “A modern manufacturing unit.” Having come out of administration, and with the various challenges that the automotive sector has faced, Evtec had a number of improvements to make e.g. machinery to update and more reliable systems and software to install.
“We’ve got a bespoke business,” said Kevin. “While on the one hand, we needed to modernise, we also needed to factor in the amount of people we employ with some form of disability or learning difficulty. It’s not as easy as taking a bespoke bit of software and telling people to get on with it.”
Kevin continued: “I employed a computer programmer who worked for the NHS. He’s a database programmer and was part of the team that set up the COVID app. With his help, we developed our own software that supports people with learning difficulties.”
As previously mentioned, the business could have decided to pivot from its bespoke, inclusive setup, gone into the market and acquired the improvements it needed. However, this was never an option. The company’s percentage of disabled employees has actually increased during this transformation journey. It’s stances like this that make you realise, this is less about the headline diversity percentages for Evtec, and more about unwavering trust in the process and the people.
The company could have done an expensive revamp of the factory floor without consideration for additional needs of employees, but then those people may have left the business, and replacements would have been needed. In case you hadn’t noticed, manufacturers aren’t in a hurry to lose valuable employees. The people at Evtec are the fabric of the business. Whether they have a disability or not, they’re there because the business needs them. If adjustments need to be made for a person to do their job, then they’re made.
Ultimately, the most important aspect of this is that it works. More than that, to work with the likes of Jaguar Land Rover, Evtec has to thrive. It’s just as productive and efficient as any plant you’ll find in the UK. This is a business that doesn’t prove its commitment to diversity and inclusion through repetition of its employee statistics, however impressive they may be. It proves it by taking you down to the factory floor and showing you.
This is something that Evtec ambassador, Nicolas Hamilton has commented on. Nicolas is the half-brother of seven time Formula One World Champion, Lewis Hamilton. Nicolas is a racing driver himself, and competes in the British Touring Car Championship. Due to his cerebral palsy, he races with a specially modified car.
“He’s a fantastic ambassador for us,” said Stuart. “We go into schools and colleges with him to tell the students why a disability shouldn’t hold you back. He says lots of companies shout about what they do to employ people with a disability, which is lovely to put in presentations, but sometimes, there’s not a lot of substance behind it. He’s been into businesses where there’s not much behind the scenes. Whereas, when you walk around here, you can see it in action.”
Meanwhile, in the kitchen…
An integral part of the Evtec family is the aptly named, Hannah Kitchen. Hannah is the Catering Manager, who heads up a team of people who cook meals for all staff and visitors. “We cater for breakfast and lunch,” said Hannah. “We work as a team, and hopefully provide a good service for everybody that works here.”
However, Hannah’s role goes beyond just keeping everyone fed. It’s worth saying, she does that very well, with a wide ranging menu; three courses for lunch with different dishes every day. And every Tuesday, specific meals are served to promote healthy eating.
Hannah Kitchen
Hannah is also very much a motherly figure to the people at Evtec; a motivator and an arm around the shoulder for those that come to chat to her in the canteen. This is particularly useful in the development of the students on work placements. As mentioned, some of them arrive shy and nervous.
Hannah and her team don’t just teach them the importance of good nutrition, but also encourage them to interact with other members of staff in the canteen. As well as that, purchasing food teaches them the value of their money and how to manage it.
Lessons to teach
If there was anything to reinforce the fact that Evtec is an exemplar for diversity, it’s that Jaguar Land Rover wants to learn from them. Following the emotional reaction of the TMMX Awards judging panel, Jaguar Land Rover is looking to incorporate some of Evtec’s practices to help in its own diversity strategy.
“That really is something,” said Stuart. “For a little site in Coventry, to have a company the size of Jaguar Land Rover wanting to learn from us is incredible.”
Will added: “We were visited by the Global Director of DE&I, who said that they could learn a lot from what we are doing with regards to employing people with disabilities. And there are conversations ongoing about how we believe we can help over the next year or so.”
The most important factor of this story for both employer and employee is that there is an enthusiasm and a motivation to make it work. Evtec has designed an environment where disability isn’t a barrier, and because of this, people are eager to achieve. The barriers only exist if you don’t think it’s possible to create such a space – that has never entered the mind of anyone at Evtec.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
True diversity can only be achieved through steadfast trust in both process and people
Mindsets still exist about what disabled people can and can’t do, which is why there aren’t many workplaces like this one
The percentage of disabled employees at Evtec has increased during its transformation journey
Some shop floor adjustments to allow everyone to do their jobs have not been hard to implement
For more stories similar to this visit our People & Skills section