GMFJs very own MD David Allison speaks about the future reflecting on the skills challenges and why we should be planning yesterday for the implementation of Apprenticeship and Early Talent programmes.
I’ve been to a range of meetings recently with CEOs and HR Directors across a range of sectors. As always, we’ve covered a number of topics to do with people development, talent attraction and retention, but a common theme has really stood out. The availability of Skills.
Having been involved in the Apprenticeship world for a number of years, I’m very attuned to the apprenticeship system, but the reality is that for most businesses, the way to solve a skills shortage is to go and recruit experienced hires from other businesses. Increasingly, however, this is leading to wage inflation. The Open University recently put the cost of this short term approach to skills acquisition at £2bn a year.
Brexit, of course, is only making this situation worse. There is so much uncertainty about the rules for both current workers as well as those that that will govern future recruitment, that no organisation can rely on overseas talent to plug the gap.
Now, apprenticeships are far from being the only solution, but if you are a big employer paying the levy, they are one way of helping to address the problem. The issue is the complexity of the system. Whilst the government is doing its best to make the system ‘employer led’, the transition is taking time. From designing the new Apprenticeship qualifications (standards) to the contracts to deliver them and even the assessment at the end of the programme (EPA), it’s all new and takes time to understand.
Future Proofing with the right skills.
One thing, however, is clear. Your organisation will not have the right skills for the future, at the right price, by chance, good fortune or luck. Understanding the skills that are required, and then coming up with a plan to deliver them should be top of any CEO’s agenda. It might be tomorrow’s problem, but tomorrow’s not far away, and ‘hoping for the best’ is not a strategy that tends to get board approval.
So, it’s worth all organisational leaders taking some time to reflect on the skills challenges of that they will face tomorrow. Where are the pinch points? How will they be addressed? Can I improve retention, upskill the existing team and what role will new hires play? All of these elements take time to understand and implement. Whilst we’re working to help fill over 10,000 vacancies nationwide today, we know that the best companies are planning now for 2018 and 2019. Why? Because they’re not relying on chance.
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