14 CARRYING THE BATON
James Harwood, Chair of the Training Committee at SCTE, speaks to Jo Ruddock about the society’s work to remove barriers, modernise learning and how it continues to add value for members
It’s fair to say that the SCTE’s James Harwood is passionate about training. During his 14 years at what is now Virgin Media O2, where he started out as an apprentice, he developed an interest in mentoring and helping to develop the next generation. In his role as Chair of the Training Committee at SCTE, he’s taking this to the next level, with a whole host of initiatives designed to modernise the organisation’s offering and add value for members. Harwood was directed towards the SCTE when working as a technical trainer and immediately saw the benefi ts of being part of the community. When he joined the executive in 2019, he had clear goals in terms of ensuring the society continued to meet the needs of its members both now and in the future as the industry navigates a period of major change. Modernising the training offering to cover human skills – Harwood isn’t a fan of the phrase ‘soft skills’ to describe these crucial attributes – as well as technology and to appeal to those new to the industry as well as those in more established careers, was top of the agenda.
“My drive has always been around removing the barriers for future careers and ultimately helping people into this industry with diverse thoughts, fresh thinking. I wanted to help us reach a different audience and make it a safe space and a valuable place for them to join. These are the ones that we need to pass this baton on to eventually,” he explains. When Harwood took over the training committee at the end of 2022, the society had reached what he describes as “a bit of a fork in the road for what we do”.
“Ultimately our industry is transitioning from being a niche technology,” he continues. “For example, if we look at cable in the UK, there’s only one operator and a miniscule handful of training providers to support that. So the SCTE played a pivotal role because they had cable training that wasn’t readily available on mass platforms. With our move away from cable into fi bre technologies we’re levelling the playing fi eld and as a telecom industry we’re moving to the same technologies. That removes the niche element, so everyone’s going to be doing everything in very similar ways. So I proposed a very different approach.”
James Harwood, Chair of the Training Committee, SCTE
“My drive has always been around removing the barriers for future careers and ultimately helping people into this industry with diverse thoughts, fresh thinking”
That approach started with the major step
of offering the society’s back catalogue to members for free.
INFORMAL LEARNING IN FOCUS “It’s all about getting learning from wherever you can,” he continues. “So I proposed that it was time for us as a society to remove the barriers to learning. Let’s recognise that we’re here to raise the standards across the industry and one way we can do that is to make our back catalogue available to our members. No restrictions.”
This allowed the SCTE to focus more on what it does with regards to XGSPON and wider
PON technologies while keeping an eye on what comes next. While the technical side is still covered, the society is also aware that technologies such as generative AI look likely to change the skills that are needed in the industry in a major way. “We’re at a point where change is inevitable and, actually, just focusing on technical skills is a little bit dangerous when it comes to the future of the industry, and also from an individual career point of view,” he adds. This led to that focus on human skills and
in turn the decision to support a mentor programme, working with Borderless Performance. There are no rules for entry – it’s designed simply to be an additional member benefi t. “It’s a critical skill, for those that want to develop into leadership or into management roles, actually being a good mentor is a lot of the work towards that point. We focus on developing people to be great mentors and then let them loose in the industry to see what they can do,” he explains.
Alongside this, the SCTE has developed context-driven human skills-based content in the form of free, one-hour virtual sessions. According to Harwood, these are there “to equip people with skills that they might need next in their career”, and cover topics such as imposter syndrome, CV writing and interview prep, handling change and more. “We wanted to put quite a broad effort out
there depending on what people are looking to do more in. People can go in and sign up for all the sessions or just cherry pick the ones that resonate most with them,”he says. So, if IBC attendees are thinking about joining the SCTE and want to start a conversation at the show, what would his advice be? “Just do it!” he says. “I am glad I wandered in, really nervous, to my fi rst SCTE lecture – it will start something for you. Also, this industry is a massive family and I can’t think of anyone who hasn’t given me that opportunity to network with them and have a really good conversation.”
James Harwood is Chair of the Training Committee at SCTE, one of IBC’s owners.
Visit the society throughout the show on the Partnership Pavilion in Hall 8.
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