Skills Shortage - Where there's a skill....there's a way01 August 2005

While there could well be more academic engineering graduates than the country really needs, there is no doubt that there is an acute shortage of people with properly honed practical skills.

The problem is likely to get worse as demographics change the age balance of the population and, since there is no point in waiting for government to solve the problem, individuals, businesses and institutions such as SOE need to do their utmost to tackle the problems themselves.

Companies need to train staff and also not forget that, as well as encouraging the young into the engineering professions, skilled 'old dogs' often have well developed professional attitudes and are pleased to learn 'new tricks' when old industries and technologies give way to their successors.

These were some of the messages to be brought home from the SOE Annual Conference held this year in Nottingham, not only from the presented papers, but also (as is so often the case at these events) from the informal discussions.

Clearly, addressing the skills shortfall is a mighty challenge. As Karen Woodward, regional skills director for LSC East Midlands, points out: "Of all companies surveyed, skills are identified by almost every employer as an issue."

The survey honed in several major areas, with the results highlighting the ways in which skills issues were affecting employers. For example, one of the the stated impacts of recruitment difficulties was to increase overtime by 83%. And while Woodward conceded that the impact of the skills gaps was "much more difficult to substantiate", but still worrying, the survey showed that 36% of the respondents were having difficulties meeting customer service aims.

The four graphs in this article demonstrate the full impact both of the above issues is having. They also show the employers' actual response on how to deal with those problems. For recruitment, 58% favour increasing advertising, while 80% advocate increasing training levels to try to resolve the skills gap problems, with 30% proposing nothing should be done.

We asked how more training (80%) and doing nothing (30%) could add up to 100% and were told that quite a few employers felt the amount of training they offered was so little, they were really in the 'do little or nothing' category.

Andrew Ramsay, executive director of the Engineering Council, pointed to one of the consequences that skills shortages is having. This showed that, in terms of relative output per hours worked, where the UK is measured at100, Germany comes out at 110, France at 122 and the USA at 130. He attributed the problem to the decline in the apprenticeship system in the 1950s and 1960s, weaknesses in the structure in place for post-school vocational education and deficiencies in the mass education system, which provides "good education at the high end, but poor education for the majority". Ramsey was particularly concerned about the teaching of mathematics.

There were numerous remarks made during the presentations and discussions about the type of training and education needed. In answer to one question, Lawrie Jackson, operations manager north for SEMTA, replied: "We should not look at the past with rose-coloured spectacles. The old apprenticeships were time-based schemes. Modern schemes are competence based. Colleges now deliver these and a lot of it is in the workplace."
Chris Humphries, director general of City & Guilds, put up a slide showing that engineers as a percentage of graduates were about 11% in the UK as compared with more than 20% in Sweden, Japan and Finland, and 18% in Germany. However, this was not the issue, he said, pointing instead to a skilled trades shortages in engineering of more than 40%, as opposed to around 18% in all sectors.

According to Humphries, 90% of skills in short supply in skilled trades were technical and practical," adding: "If you have problems attracting young people into the workforce today, it is going to get far worse in five years' time."

Humphries also spoke of the poor image that engineering has among young people at school, but he did also make this observation.

"There is an amazing social conscience among the youth of today. Far more of them would go into a job with less pay, if it makes a difference." His argument was that we, as a profession, need to get the message across that it is engineers who are responsible for devising the means by which ordinary people can achieve a better life. (And here, as plant engineers, we might particularly mention solutions to provide energy and dispose of waste, without damage to the environment).

Andrew Ramsay felt that part of the answer might be "encouraging teacher exposure to modern industrial environments".

Chris Humphries suggested an '(Operations) Engineering is cool' campaign, as well as strengthening the apprenticeship offer - perhaps with a guaranteed job at the end of it - and providing education and training with income, rather than debt.
A bigger problem he singled out was that "there is no obvious industry entry route for adults", although he did cite the Adult Apprenticeships scheme being run by Marshalls of Cambridge as something that others might care to emulate.

In answer to a question about what happened to skilled men made redundant by downsizing and business failures, he replied: "Up to fifty per cent have taken lower-level jobs. A serious number are on incapacity benefit. A lot have retired."
Ramsay pointed to the fact that "in the 1990s, we lost nine million jobs in manufacturing, but gained seven million."

Barry Warburton, head of external affairs, EEF Western, said that they had been able to minimise skilled job losses in the West Country, thanks to their "early warning system."
Right at the close of the conference, somebody in the audience remarked that his company had just trained two 50-year-old yard men as craftsmen and had a number of employees in their sixties with whom his company was well satisfied.

One of the ways redundant, skilled people can continue to be employed, of course, is to work for themselves. Prior to the start of proceedings, we mentioned to representatives of EMTA Awards the need for everyone in businesses large or small to learn entrepreneurship. Their response was to draw our attention to their level 2, 3 and 4 N/SVQs on 'Business Improvement Techniques', which are divided into 'Quality' and 'Process' pathways.

A government employee, who shall remain nameless, agreed entrepreneurship should be widely taught, but said he despaired of schemes based on "play acting". We asked if instead he meant subjects such as accountancy, managing tax affairs, lean working, data management and cash flow optimisation and he said he approved of that list.

Squaring the circle

Barry Warburton sees engineering education as being like the Circle Line on the London Underground, where users can get on and off at any point and still arrive at their destination by going either way round. He said that his organisation started at junior school level - using presenter Johnny Ball to introduce fun ideas about science and engineering - along with technology-based projects, and company visits and CADCAM courses for both children and teachers. At secondary schools, his organisation promoted regional robotics competitions, awareness events and hands-on practical experience.
For apprentices, they have an 'Apprentice of the Year' competition and, for undergraduates, the STEP project for getting undergraduates into engineering companies for project-based experience. For postgraduates there are 26-week MSc placements; and, for companies, free Business Needs Analyses. These lead on to training plans, from which individual training and development can take place with grant support.

"A lot of the companies we go into don't have the attitude to go into 'lean'," says Warburton, "which we always explain does not mean 'downsize', but 'improve your sales'.
Jonathan Fearon, deputy principle of West Nottinghamshire College, described the new graduate apprenticeships scheme, which comprises a two-year foundation degree and one-year to 18 months' BSc top-up, all in work placement. Initially non-employed, the employee (student) earns £8,000 to £10,000 per annum. Student fees go to a deferred loan account. If the student stays 18 months, the fee is paid off. If the student leaves, they keep the liability. Provided the course receives validation, the college plans to take on the first 25 students later this year.

Shaun Stephenson, national fleet manager of Biffa Waste Services, presented the last paper of the day, which was previewed in the March-April edition of Plant Engineer. The company has some 1,800 vehicles and 63 workshops. Many fleet operators contract out repairs and maintenance, but Stephenson said keeping this in-house brought faster turn-arounds, but did lead to the need to train mechanics. As a result, the company recruits apprentices annually and offers a four-year training package. He said that success was measured in terms of increased staff retention, reduction in sickness, improvement in skill base, improved vehicle uptime and "temperature test" surveys, showing consistent improvement.

He did, however, also mention that as a "short-term issue" he had taken on 12 technicians from Poland, who had proved competent.

UK lagging behind

Training deficiencies in the UK are not new, but the impact is all the greater in a global marketplace. To compete, we need to ensure that what we make and develop in this country is of premium quality. This means that our engineers and technicians need to be better trained than those in competing countries.

The fact it was the SOE that organised the conference, not a government agency, is indicative of how seriously SOE takes the problem - by raising awareness, encouraging professional development, especially among the young, and pressing for increasing requirement for certification of competence among its practitioners.

John Eastman, SOE's new president, made it clear in his inaugural address that he intends that the Society should continue to pursue these goals.

SOE

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