The demand for skills should not be demand-led
I saw reference in a recent article to a comment that skills should be “demand led”.
But should they – and in any event, whose demand? Employers or employees?
A recent visit to a telecoms products warehouse in Northern Ireland illustrates this only too graphically. The company has just introduced a new SAP-based system to replace the previous software. One of our Unite members told me that he had asked to go on SAP training so he could gain the competence and skill to be able to use the new system and put in for a higher level job to secure promotion..
He was told that as his present job doesn’t require such skills, he could not go on the training course. Naturally without the training, he does not have the skills and competences for the higher-level job and thus is denied the opportunity for promotion.
Although things are slowly changing in the UK, the British disease over many years is a failure to invest adequately in people at work, both equipment and skills.
Just look at the following quotations:
• “The case for action is urgent and compelling…Our intermediate and technical skills lag behind Germany and France..”
• “Firms need to change or upgrade…skills…our methods and attitudes contrast markedly with …Germany and France..”
• “Other countries are making an immense effort to train more scientific and technical manpower…we are in danger of being left behind..”
• “The development of technical education is the greatest need of this country.”
• “The greater part of what is taught. does not seem to be the proper preparation for …business”
The above were written in 2006, 1981, 1945, 1924 and 1776 respectively. All are taken from official reports apart from the last, which is from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.
Even now – and this is as true for the IT sector as anywhere – we have a just-in-time approach to skills development, as we do for the supply of products and services.
The UK is never going to be able to compete against the rapidly-expanding economies of India and China either in goods or services on pay costs. Nor should we. There is no mileage in a race to the bottom, lowering our pay rates towards those, for example, of Eastern Europe or south east Asia, not that pay rates in these areas are remaining static in any case.
The only way – and the only sustainable way – now and for the future will be for the UK to compete on skills and the quality of our goods and services.
Just-in-time skills – or demand-led skills – is the wrong way to approach this, implying that we can develop the required skills at the time they are needed. Wrong – this will be too late.
We have to think and plan ahead, preparing in advance for the needs of tomorrow and not just today. Needs-led and not demand-led.
Dead right Peter!
Even the CBI argues that there is a chronic shortage of skilled IT workers and it is damaging the industry and productivity. This is contained in their survey of over 700 UK companies (in all industires).
Your readers may have seen the report below from IT Week.
CBI warns of IT skills shortage
Shortage of graduates and technology-illiterate workforce damaging UK plc
IT Week Staff, IT Week, 17 Apr 2008
Six out of ten employers are having difficulties recruiting graduates for technical positions, such as IT, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has revealed.
A survey of 735 UK firms that the falling number of graduates with science, technology, engineering and maths qualifications is fuelling a skills shortage.
The CBI reports that 59% of the firms it polled said they were having difficulty in recruiting graduates with science, technology, engineering or maths qualifications.
Yet by 2014, the CBI predicts that the UK employers will need an additional 730,000 graduates with such technical skills.
"A worrying number of employers have little confidence that they will be able to plug their skills gaps. In our new stock take of the nation's skills, too many firms also say poor basic skills are hampering customer service and acting as a drag on their business's performance," said John Cridland, director general of the CBI.
Larger firms are increasingly looking to India, China and Eastern Europe to bridge the shortfall in UK skills.
Meanwhile, the research also showed that more than half of employers are concerned about their staff's inability to use computers.
Posted by: Tony Burke | Saturday, 19 April 2008 at 07:36 AM
All the quotes in Peter's article demonstrate that learning and training have always been discretionary spend for corporations.
If the UK isn't to fall behind the rest of continental Europe, never mind such countries as India and China, UK companies, some of which are subsidiaries of global corporations, often with US-based headquarters, must stop regarding vital investment in learning and training as non-essential spend.
In lean times, target the spend on immediate and urgent skills training. In better times, allow employees to broaden their knowledge beyond just the known technical or workplace skills. For example, let them learn a new language, or follow a course in environmental studies or even on how to direct a stage play. Maybe none of these would have a direct or immediate application at work but would equip an employee with knowledge and skills that will, inevitably, come into play at some time during their careers.
Government can play a part by assisting companies, maybe through the taxation system, to provide financial incentives to continually re-skill the workforce.
Unite, the union, through its Workplace Learning Representatives, identifies the needs of its members, then challenges and encourages companies to meet those needs, even if the immediate payback isn't obvious.
Posted by: Mick Matysiak | Friday, 02 May 2008 at 03:57 PM