Amanda McLaren, Managing Director of AW Hainsworth describes the 'generational shift' that has taken place in recent years at the Leeds textile firm, the result of a strategy designed to give young people a future in manufacturing that's meaningful, innovative, and full of opportunity.
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Attracting young people into manufacturing is one of the biggest challenges UK businesses face today, especially in traditional industries like textiles. There’s a perception problem. Many young people don’t see manufacturing as modern, dynamic, or relevant to their ambitions. As a heritage woollen mill based in Leeds, we’ve felt that first-hand. It’s not just about filling vacancies, it’s about making sure the next generation sees a future here, one that’s meaningful, innovative, and full of opportunity. That’s why we’ve had to completely rethink how we engage with young talent - from the way we recruit to the way we support and develop our people once they join.
At our company, based in Stanningley in Leeds, we’ve been on a journey. One that’s forced us to look in the mirror and ask tough questions. How do we make sure a young person sees our business not just as a job, but as a career? How do we speak their language? Most importantly, how do we build an environment that supports them, not just professionally, but emotionally and socially too?
The answer didn’t come overnight. It began by redefining what it means to be an employer of choice. That’s where our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy came in - not just as a tick-box exercise, but as a guiding framework for how we act and how we engage with people.
Help young people to see a future
One of the proudest examples I can give is how we brought someone like Danny into the fold. Danny’s a Project Engineer, he’s highly skilled and well-trained, but was sceptical about the role he would play at a mill. To bring him onboard we painted him a picture of the future, of where we were heading and how we were investing.
We showed him that we valued more than just output; we cared about well-being, growth, and trust. We promised support, flexible working, mental health programs, walking groups, and even time off to attend school events for his kids. Today, Danny is helping to lead the next generation of engineers, contributing to the opening of our brand-new engineering centre.
There was a lot of trust required when bringing young people onto the team. We had to trust Danny with ownership, so he could lead, develop and ultimately succeed.
Don’t expect young people to get it right first time
When you speak to people decades into their careers, a common experience you hear is that they tried a few jobs before landing on what they want to do. Why do we expect our young people to know what that is immediately, upon leaving school or college?
Finding the right fit, especially in a sector as broad and dynamic as manufacturing, often takes some trial and error. Young people may need to explore different roles to discover where their strengths and interests align, and we try to make this possible within our business.
Andrea is a great example of this - she started her journey with us in our weaving shed and completed her training to be a Weaver. Although she was more than capable in her role, it quickly became clear that it wasn’t the right fit for her. Rather than lose a young person with lots of potential, we encouraged Andrea to explore other parts of the business. She tried an office-based role, before finding her calling in our laboratory as a textile testing technician. Now she contributes the quality and longevity of our fabrics, skills that are vital to the future of textile manufacturing.
We’re proud that Andrea could explore different career paths with us, instead of feeling she had to leave in search of something else. Rather than viewing early job changes as failures, we should see them as valuable steps in a journey and make them possible whenever we can.
Encourage the generational shift
There’s another challenge we’ve had to navigate, and that’s the generational shift.
Take Mick and Sam. Mick’s been with us for decades. His skills are in his hands, in his head - he’s one of the most valued people we have. But we knew that to build a sustainable future, we had to ensure that knowledge didn’t retire with him. That meant making Mick feel safe and respected in sharing his experience, not threatened by it.
At the same time, we encouraged Sam to absorb everything Mick had to offer, but to also make it his own. His future, and ours, are grounded in data, analytics, continuous improvement, and reliability. We think that is exciting, it’s how you take something traditional and power it forward into something modern and efficient. We’ve worked hard to create a culture and environment where this shift can happen.
We had to shift our behaviour as a leadership team too. It wasn’t just about hiring young people - it was about making space for them. Giving them room to imagine, create, and challenge us on thinks we thought we knew. We had to say to ourselves: “This isn’t about replacing what we’ve got. It’s about evolving it, by respecting the past while building the future.”
Invest in support
And that takes investment. In 2022, I put £20,000 in the budget for mental health support. I’ll be honest – a few people questioned that decision. But I knew that to live our values we had to back them with action. That £20,000 helped build the foundation of who we are as an employer. And more than that, it became a signal to our people, especially the younger generation, that we mean what we say.
That £20,000 goes to bi-monthly onsite counselling, and group sessions on topics such as money management, sleep, or stress. It funds quarterly speakers on difficult topics like suicide and prostate cancer. It pays for weekly fruit deliveries, and allows team members to develop their own wellbeing initiatives, like our Couch to 5k programme and running group the Hainsworth Harriers. These are all things that started as ‘nice-to-haves’ and are now firmly part of who we are.
You can’t play at this. You can’t offer support one year and pull it the next because the budget is tight. That’s not how you build trust. You need consistency. You need to partner with charities and counsellors who stick around. That’s when your team starts to believe in you and the business they’re part of.
For us, sponsoring the West Yorkshire Manufacturing Festival is part of that wider mission. We’re proud to support something that showcases the real opportunities in this sector and helps young people see that manufacturing isn’t just about machines or production lines. It’s about people, growth, innovation, and community.
When we invite young people into our businesses, we’re not just giving them jobs, we’re handing them the keys to the future of British manufacturing. It’s our responsibility to ensure those keys are in safe hands.
