With an estimated eight million UK workers not having the correct training to do their jobs properly, and a massive 500,000 vacancies existing nationwide, the severe lack of workplace skills is becoming a serious headache for many employers.
To help combat the problem, the government introduced Employer Training Pilots (ETPs) two years ago. Initially restricted to a handful of regions, the scheme’s success saw it extended to cover a third of England in this year’s Budget. By providing employees on-site training and compensating employers for time lost, ministers hope ETPs can help dig firms out of the skills crisis.
David Greer, national project manager for ETPs at the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), talked exclusively to Startups.co.uk on what the pilots can do for small businesses.
Well, we would say very successful, but I think more importantly over 8,000 business, the majority of them small businesses, and over 40,000 employees are telling us that they are successful.
The Treasury are making it quite clear that they’re not prepared to not make any final decision on whether this will be available across England until they get the full independent results on the full 2 years of the pilots, which will probably be spring of next year.
Not under this current scheme, although I have had conversations with the various delegated authorities (from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) because they have been looking at why ETPs have been working so well, with a view to how they might introduce something similar themselves, but it has only been exploratory discussions.
I think it’s very important that they have been extended for a third phase, and an extra £190 million in funding has been allocated. I think that there are very clear reasons why they are keen to explore how ETPs work.
Its very much about putting the employer in the driver seat - demand-led training as opposed to what the supply has available at any point in time. Secondly, it reaches seven million people who are in work but do not have any qualifications up to Level 2.
What has been described in the skills strategy, which came out last July, is very much about understanding how the demand by employers can be met but also through that inflexible, responsive employer-focused way, you also raise that demand.
The critical issue is that by investing in the skills of your workforce, you actually improve your profitability, your productivity and the motivation to work of your employees. In doing so, what you actually convince small businesses to do is to invest more of their own funds in up-skilling, because what we’ve shown them is that it does actually bring clear bottom-line benefits.
The two main issues that small businesses talk about in terms in investing in workforce skills are cost and time. What ETPs are specifically designed to do are to overcome those particular barriers.
If I just take you through the process, the first thing we do when an employer expresses an interest is to send a broker out to the business to talk to the owner specially about low skills are hampering the progress of their business. So it’s very much setting skills in the context of that individual business performance.
The second step is that the employer then identifies the skills areas that they need to address to help the business and to identify which employees are eligible for support from ETPs. So, again, it’s very much in the hands of the business.
The other hurdle that small businesses have is – how do you find someone to apply that training? None of us would pretend that the current system is easy for a customer to get to a training provider, but that’s the broker’s role.
Having identified the skills needs and having identified the employees, the first thing they do is bring in a provider, who has to do two things. The first thing is to assess the existing skills of the employees – and these aren’t young people who have never been in work, they may not have qualifications, but they will have skills, by having been in work for some period of time.
What we demand of training providers is to assess the existing skills of each employee and map that against the occupational standards, which of course are defined by employers, so they are highly relevant.
The provider has to then deliver the training programme but, most important of all, is that it’s at a time and a place which suits that business. So most of our delivery is in the workplace, so employees don’t have to go off to some college - the employers go to them. It cuts down time off the job, and for example if it’s at four o’clock in the morning, then it’s at four o’clock in the morning!
Obviously we are aware of that anxiety by small business, but actually what’s happening in ETPs contradicts that. What the employers are saying is that within weeks they are seeing improvements in motivation, in morale and attitude.
We have a whole series of examples from businesses which show that staff retention has gone up, absenteeism has gone down and you get comments from employees – ‘This is the first my employer has invested in my skills.’
Now this doesn’t matter if this is the government or the Learning and Skills Council that’s subsidising that - what they see is what their employer’s doing for them.
What is important that existing employees have the full range of skills to support and drive the business. When an employer needs to recruit, they know that there are people available with the right sort of skills and be productive from day one, but by then we would hope that we have changed the culture so that they will continue to invest in those employees.
Well, if you look at the targets that’s been set by the government, by 2006 we will have taken a million people who in 2002 didn’t have any qualifications and a fairly poor range of skills, and have got them qualified to at least Level 2. All the evidence suggests we are going to achieve that first target, and that would be a significant difference in the marketplace for what employers need.
Our target for 2010, is that will have up-skilled three million employees to at least Level 2. Obviously, we are doing lots of other things, I’m just focusing on the ETPs, but you are looking at by 2010 to have half of the problem solved.
And clearly other parts of the government and the LSC are working at the young people’s end to ensure that fewer and fewer enter the labour market with at least Level 2 qualification.
You’ve not only got to fix the issues within the labour pool, you’ve got to prevent poorly qualified people entering that labour pool, so you are in a continuos improvement cycle.
Hopefully, the results that employers are clearly seeing in the pilots mean that they are investing more between now and 2010 in the skills of their workforce, so you get a win-win situation.
The first thing I would do would be to ring our helpline, 0870 900 6800. The people there will then pass the query through to a local office who will get a broker out to that employer within five working days.
The broker’s job is not just about ETPs, it’s to discuss the whole skills situation with the employer and create a solution for them, whether its in an ETP area or not.
We want to focus on two things – one, how do we help with the immediate problem and, two, how do we then work with the business to develop an upskilling plan so they don’t get into this situation again.
To find out more about ETPs, go to www.lsc.gov.uk or call 0870 900 6800
