35th Anniversary
WE NEED TO ACT NOW TO close the widening skills gap
Graduate and apprenticeship placements in the science industries allow employers to sample the talent that’s available at low risk, while the
workforce of the future is given the opportunity to gain invaluable industry skills and knowledge
There’s a vast array of skills the workforce in the process industry needs to have, says Simon Wigington, relationship manager at Cogent Skills, an agency who can offer engineering graduates and apprentices additional training to apply their knowledge in a safe, efficient and effective way
t isn’t news that the engineering industry is facing a looming skills shortage; for the third year in a row, engineers found themselves second on the list of talent shortages reported by employers in the UK and globally according to the Manpower Group Global Talent Shortage Survey 2014. The skills gap is not the only problem
I
facing the process industries in the UK: there’s a huge demographic gap too. We’re not seeing enough young people entering the industries and, instead, employers are relying on engineers already in the talent pool – a pool that is drying up. If we continue on this path we run the risk of UK process and manufacturing industries losing their position as leaders in innovation, and we’re also increasing the risk of a major incident.
RECRUITING TALENT To combat this, we need to focus on recruiting younger talent and encouraging new generations to enter the workforce. However, there’s a lack of the right workplace skills being taught in schools and universities and new recruits just aren’t prepared enough to meet industry needs. Numerous candidates coming fresh out of graduate engineering programmes require additional training in order to get more practical, workplace skills.
Parts of the industry have perhaps
lagged in providing opportunities for young people and there is a very real need for companies to invest in placement and internship opportunities for graduates. Help is out there to support companies in doing this; agencies like Cogent Skills can manage graduate and apprenticeship placements in the science industries so employers can sample the talent that’s available at low risk, while the workforce of the future is given the opportunity to gain invaluable industry skills and knowledge. The benefits of apprenticeships is that apprentices don’t have any preconceptions of the industry; and employers can shape them into what they need the employee to be. Employers involved in the recently
developed Science Industry Partnership (SIP) for skills, undertook research that showed that companies across the science industries needed an enhanced vocational entry route via SMART and higher level apprenticeships because those in regional locations had a limited local recruitment pool, or in more established clusters like the North-West, were competing for scarce skills. Apprenticeships of this nature can be tailored around a job role rather than the qualification, and graduate calibre apprentices have that all-important, on-the-job training embedded in their learning too.
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TRAINING & SKILLS FOCUS LINPAC Packaging was one of the first
companies to implement a SMART apprenticeship and has used the Cogent Skills managed apprenticeship service for three years. Andy Walker, regional improvement leader at LINPAC Packaging, said: “Apprenticeships are an invaluable tool for succession planning and they enable our employees to pass their industry specific expertise on to a new generation of employees. Being able to design the apprenticeship to suit the needs of our business is a big improvement on the traditional apprenticeship model. Having apprentices involved in the refurbishments of machinery going to Australia has reduced our refurbishment costs by around £25,000 because it’s something we would usually have to pay a contractor to come in and do.”
REPLACING A RETIRING WORKFORCE There will always be a cost when it comes to managed services, such as apprenticeships, but there is a greater cost of not doing anything and allowing a retiring workforce to leave the industry without replacing them with fully skilled and experienced personnel. This could become a very serious problem in the UK COMAH industries where having an experienced workforce is a critical requirement, particularly in the context of health, safety and environmental considerations.
Such experience can only be gained on-
the-job, but it needs to be taught consistently, and needs to happen now, while we still have access to the current workforce who have developed and built upon their company knowledge and process safety over years of service. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
Competence Authority (CA), part of the UK Process Safety Management Project Board, recognises the need for a performance and recognition framework as a best practice for process safety at all levels within an organisation. To this end they endorse the Process Safety Management (PSM) training standards- based approach, as best-practice. Achieving certification by completing one of Cogent’s process safety courses demonstrates compliance with health and safety, makes companies more appealing to candidates and can be influential in gaining new contracts. There is a looming skills and
demographic gap in the process industries; if we act now and provide the right opportunities to train the future workforce, we will close it.
Cogent Skills T: 01925 515200
www.cogentskills.co.uk
Enter 220 PROCESS & CONTROL | JUNE 2015 21
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