Licensed to skill04 April 2005

Keeping Biffa's massive UK waste management operations on the move is a man with a mission. Shaun Stephenson has watched the skills levels within both industry as a whole, and the engineering profession in particular, go through a serious decline - one that has impacted his own company as well - and is determined to see that trend reversed.

Biffa Waste Services - where Stephenson is general manager, fleet - is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Severn Trent Group, a business partner of the SOE, and one of the UK's largest integrated waste management businesses, providing collection, landfill and special waste services to local authorities and industrial/ commercial clients. He is a vociferous campaigner for a renewed commitment to grassroots training - through both employee upskilling and apprenticeships - without which, he believes, the UK's ability to sustain a healthy and competitive commercial environment will be dangerously undermined.

Demonstrating that commitment, says Stephenson, has to start at home - hence the comprehensive employee training programme within Biffa itself. He has overall responsibility for the operations of 62 company locations nationwide maintaining 1,700 vehicles, and currently has more than 160 employees (out of 340 in fleet) undergoing a rigorous technician licensing programme. The technicians Biffa employs are of a highly specialist nature, dealing as they do with the complex environment of refuse and earthmoving hydraulics.

"We are taking something of a lead in industry by enhancing our people's benefits packages as they raise their skills levels," Stephenson points out. "We are also something of a rarity in terms of how we deliver those skills, in that we still have the majority of our workshops in house. Outside of the Royal Mail and some of the private sector organisations, our workshop infrastructure is probably the biggest in the country."

"This is one of the most demanding sectors - that's why we consider upskilling to be vital. Also, because we are a private company servicing council and other major contracts, safety and environmental considerations are central to the way we conduct our business. This reinforces the need to ensure the right skills are being delivered to the workforce."

Stephenson traces the lack of proper investment in apprenticeship schemes and attracting people into the industry back to the 1980s. While he accepts that the problem is starting to be addressed, he sees an industry that still bears the scars of that neglect.

"Within our own company, for example, much of the workforce is getting near to retirement age and that is a major issue for us. So my focus in particular is on succession planning - bringing in the next generation of young people - to ensure we take our skills levels to a higher pitch. We are certainly here for the long term, some of our contracts run for 20 to 30 years, and continuity of performance is vital."

To this end, Biffa works with industry partners to identify young people who want to come into the industry and have the right aptitude and attitude. They are given a skills test to see if they would be suitable to start on a four-year apprenticeship.

"The industry norm currently is that you lose about a third of your apprentices in the first two years, which is sad, but a fact," says Stephenson. "The problem is that, particularly in the waste industry, they come into what is a very harsh environment - a cross between plant fitting and motor vehicle engineering, on account of the hydraulics on the vehicles. However, the people we tend to keep after they've completed that initial phase are of a calibre where we want to invest in them heavily, sending them away to college on block release training. We also provide vehicles to some of the colleges for these young people to work on, so they are getting hands-on experience all the way through the programme."

Communicate widely

Stephenson is keen to communicate the skills message to a much wider audience, for he is convinced that everyone benefits from a highly informed and trained national workforce, underpinned by a strong apprenticeship programme. One major platform he has chosen is SOE's 2005 conference, 'The Skills Shortage - Engineering a Solution'.

There, Stephenson will deliver his vision on 'Addressing the skills shortage in the private sector'. He plans to stress the importance of investing in the workforce, as well as the infrastructure and conditions within which they operate, in order to attract people and retain them. He will share Biffa's own experience of making this commitment - and not simply by targeting the UK employment pool.

"We have already been recruiting from Poland and are looking to expand on that. The attraction is that they have transferable qualifications that can be utilised directly within our business. We've identified Poland initially as we recruited part of our driver workforce from there, but we may well extend the catchment area beyond that where the appropriate resources are available. Then perhaps we can use one of our partners, such as the SOE, to assess their skills levels and indeed upskill them."

Trying to bridge the skills gap is a never-ending challenge, he admits. "Not only do we find that to be the case on a regional basis, but throughout the UK. The greatest area of need, in fact, is in the south. In terms of labour rates, we are very competitive in what we pay, but we are looking for other ways to attract people as well. For example, we have progressive pension and sickness schemes, and working conditions are very attractive. Also, the facilities at our workshops are of a high standard, including six designated sites across the UK where vehicles can be tested, offering valuable practical experience."

Recurrence of breakdowns

Skills shortages have also impacted the vehicle manufacturers' dealership networks, he says, which are a heavily used resource for the road haulage industry when it comes to supporting their maintenance initiatives. "The result is that you tend to experience a recurrence of vehicle breakdowns or defects. Also, a general operator putting a vehicle into a dealership may find there is an increased level of downtime, as the labour force to handle the volume of work just isn't there. And that has a knockon effect on the operator, of course."

He concedes that the industry is waking up to the problem, with many of the dealerships now operating their own apprenticeship programmes, but would like to see this positive approach reinforced elsewhere.

"One significant contribution that the government, skills councils, professional institutions and trade associations could make to ease the pressure is to make the industry more attractive to young people at an earlier age. They need to play a bigger part in schools by selling the organisation. I know the Engineering Council has exerted a strong influence within schools in the past, so it's very important these approaches are sustained."

Why is it, though, that the industry has such a struggle to recruit? "Engineering is still seen as a dirty industry and one to which people do not necessarily gravitate, so they may well choose to work in IT or an office environment instead," explains Stephenson. "Yet vehicle technology - and plant technology especially - has moved enormously. Vehicles with hydraulics have now got printed circuit control boards and logic computers. It's no longer simply about servicing vehicles; it's also about deeper-level electronics and using IT skills to diagnose faults. When it comes to our image, we have a lot of prejudices to overcome."

How can those in power contribute to that turnaround on a broader level? "I would like the government to wake up to the fact that the road transport industry is critical to UK business by providing it with a vital arterial network, and that engineering is a core industry to which many of those businesses belong. Therefore the government needs to invest in, and encourage, those young people who will become the future of our industry."

SOE

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