EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS Businesses on board


The range of jobs in the food manufacturing industry is wide. We speak to two HR directors to find out what they look for in young recruits and how they support and work with schools to improve students’ employability skills


T


he food and drink manufacturing industry is the UK’s biggest manufacturing sector, employing 400,000 people in a variety of roles. however, the sector’s future sustainability is highly dependant on the skills of its current workforce and


its ability to attract the right talent for the future. The industry is unusual in the range of people


it recruits – from school-leavers with few or no formal qualifications through to highly qualified post- graduates for specialised food science and technology posts. SecEd speaks with two hR directors from the


industry to get the low-down on what food and drink manufacturers are looking for when they recruit young people into the sector and how they are supporting schools.


Sylvia Halkerston


Macphie of Glenbervie, Scotland (a family company producing premium food ingredients).


When you are interviewing young people do you find they have the right mix of qualifications versus employability skills? “We are short of young people who can communicate well and, while trying hard not to sound like the generation who are putting down texting, we seriously have young people who do not have good interpersonal skills. There’s a divide, the young people at the very top of the tree probably have exposure to things like duke of edinburgh and so on, which allows them to take on problem-solving. And I don’t mean high level problem- solving, just dealing with life decisions and how they manage themselves, which is really important for employability. I think that in Scotland the Curriculum for excellence will help but we still need to address it as an issue. Schools have got to address employability as a subject area.”


How do you help schools to educate students about roles in the industry? “We as a company have invested for many years in working closely with education; not just in careers talks but working with them in delivery of the curriculum, and we’ve recently partnered with the Scottish food anddrinkfederation in their wider schools programme. What we want to convey is that there are opportunities


for all. We have excellent career opportunities for young people who want to study engineering, sciences, marketing, accountancy and IT.”


Does industry engage well with schools and keep them up-to-date? Can more be done? “This is a two-way topic. Industry is not engaging comprehensively, although there is a lot of good work going on. our sector is taking the weight in going into schools, engaging with teachers on the curriculum, delivering subject lessons which are directly related to the curriculum, but also directly related to the needs we have in the business. for instance, our technologists will work with a


school looking at science in food to stimulate those who study science as a career telling them what they can do with those skills once they go into a company. But teachers also have to be proactive and want to


work with companies. They need to say what we can do with them and for them as part of their curriculum delivery, and they also need to keep industry up-to-date with all the changes in education.”


Isn’t school engagement just an opportunity for brands to get to customers at an early age? “It isn’t about the brand, it’s about the sector. It’s about what the company does, for example, with scientists, engineers, and IT specialists. It is about working practically with the information that education needs to ensure curriculum delivery; information that can only


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Rising to the occasion: Pupils taking part in Breadmaking for Schools, one of the projects run by Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate


come from industry for that delivery. The brand doesn’t come into it. With our company we don’t have a dilemma at


all. We are a food ingredients manufacturer which is predominantly business-to-business; it does us no good to display our brand in the school. But we also have to be realistic. If you have a brand


name working with a school and they’re taking along their product to explain how scientists arrived at that product, they’re not going to mask the name. In fact, the name is often what will engender the interest of young people – because they realise that the work they do at school can impact on the big brand names.”


Caz Hewson,


Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate (the company has a “Business Education” policy and works closely with schools in their local communities).


What is the Business Education policy? “We strongly believe in playing a full and active part in our local communities. We also believe in supporting young people to grow and develop as individuals, and that a successful partnership at this stage in their careers may well encourage them to become our team members – and leaders – of tomorrow. These two principles come together in Business education. We view Business education as any activity that


brings us as a business, or members of our teams, into contact with students, teachers or educational organisations. our work with young people is wide and varied and


includes mentoring programmes and work experience for both school and university students, both of which give a flavour of working life, while school visits to the Taylors sites – Bettys Craft Bakery and Bettys Cookery School – offer the chance to see what happens behind the scenes.”


What are the benefits? “If we are to have a pool of skilled and enthusiastic candidates who will apply for jobs with us in the future, it is important to send out the right messages from the start. By having students for periods of work experience and by helping them with things like interviewing skills, we are able to positively influence future generations of potential team members. Such initiatives also enable us to raise awareness of the range of opportunities we can offer around the business. Business education’s projects provide excellent


opportunities for us to participate in our local communities in ways that can benefit both our business and the young people and teachers involved. We are able to raise the profile of the business and influence the skills of future generations, while providing practical help and advice to the people we work with. The real value of Businesseducation comes through


the fact that it is hugely beneficial for both the students and our business. Members of our staff who have been involved in the scheme have commented on what great opportunities these projects provide for personal and professional development. It could be that they develop their interpersonal skills by being a mentor or


that by giving a talk they are able to work on their self- confidence, presentation skills and knowledge of the business and our customers.”


SecEd


Further information The food and drink federation (fdf) recently


Union address: ATL Inspected to death?


Challenging schools need more support not


inspecting to death, says Dr Mary Bousted


IT IS difficult, at present, to think of reasons to be cheerful if you are a teacher or school leader. on top of squeezed budgets and redundancies, around 82,000 education workers in the state sector lost their jobs in the academic year 2010/11, we have the two latest announcements on no-notice inspections and the abolition of ofsted’s “satisfactory” rating. This change means that any school which does


not get a “good” or “outstanding” grading from ofsted will be given a new category of “requires improvement”. ofsted will not allow any school to remain with this status for more than three years. Schools so designated will be subject to earlier re-inspection, within 12 to 18 months, with those failing to demonstrate improvement being put into special measures. To justify yet more stringent measures to police


schools and teachers, ministers and the newly appointed ofsted chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, cite the problems of coasting schools which have low expectations for their pupils or are prepared to accept mediocre achievements. Schools which are, in fact, self-satisfied. A recent report produced by the RSA in


collaboration with ofsted, (Un)Satisfactory? Enhancing Life Changes By Improving Satisfactory Schools, provided the research used as the basis for abolishing the “satisfactory” grade, and for more frequent inspections of schools graded “satisfactory”. The report reveals that schools stuck in the


“satisfactory” grade have a higher number of disadvantaged pupils and working class pupils. outstanding schools take their fair share of neither. This finding is important. outstanding


schools disproportionately have advantaged pupil intakes. Satisfactory schools have proportionately disadvantaged intakes. The proportions matter because it is much more difficult for disadvantaged pupils to make good progress when they comprise the majority of a school’s intake. Why? Because there are fewer successful peers for pupils to emulate. Ambition and achievement grow not only from good teaching, but also from peer pressure. Unfortunately, we work in a Walter Mitty world


where the truth hurts, so it is ignored. Where the reaction to the problem of struggling schools is to name and shame. Where inspection has replaced support and development. Any rational government and inspection regime


would look to rebalancing school intakes to achieve success for all. As this solution is, apparently, too explosive, we hurtle towards a divided, competitive school system where strong schools survive and weak ones go to the wall. I think of satisfactory schools as fragile. The


greater challenges they face make it much more difficult for them to raise pupil and school attainment and performance. Sadly, the pupils’ background is a remarkably reliable indicator of ofsted’s grading of a school. These schools need extra support and


development, with teachers who are properly rewarded for their work in challenging circumstances and budgets that enable them to have smaller classes and more resources. These schools need leaders who focus on creating a calm, orderly environment in which pupils can learn, and a focus on CPd so that teachers can develop the skills and abilities they need to enable the most disadvantaged children to make progress. finally, these schools need to become less isolated, prouder about what they do well, and clear about where they need to improve. None of the above are easy to achieve. They all


require ambition, effort and resource. They speak, however, to a climate of hope – not a culture of despair that believes you can improve a school by inspecting it to death.


• Dr Mary Bousted is general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. Visit www.atl.org.uk


launched its careers campaign, Taste Success – A Future in Food, which aims to promote the sector as a viable career for school-leavers and graduates. To support the campaign, the fdf has developed a range of careers materials for schools. for more information, visit www.fdf.org.uk


SecEd • February 2 2012


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