Member Article

Push to boost North East construction skills

A campaign aimed at helping improve recruitment figures for North East companies in the construction and building sectors has kicked off. Businesses in these sectors are now being encouraged to attach more importance to employee training and development.

Research from Investors in People (IIP) found that 68% of workers in the sector believe that attracting and retaining talent is an issue, with 35% of these saying it is a growing problem. Nearly a third of workers surveyed said that employees in their organisation didn’t have the skills they need to be fully proficient in their job.

Assessment North East (ANE) is currently targeting the construction sector with a campaign aimed at encouraging more companies to look at ways of improving business performance and competitiveness, including increasing the skill levels of their employees.

Robert Macleod, Managing Director of ANE, said: “Interestingly, some organisations seem afraid to invest in their employees with 22% saying that workers will be poached by a competitor once they have been trained up. A further one in ten also seems resigned to the issue, claiming that a high turnover of staff means there is no point.

“Unless the industry tackles this issue head on progress will continue to be slow - and businesses will see their bottom line suffer as a result of poor productivity and inadequately skilled workers.

A series of events during March are aimed at giving companies access to advice and opinion on developing their businesses through investing in workforce skills. Details are on www.traintogain.gov.uk/region/northeast/events.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .