Partner Article

Employers urged to train in New Year

Employers are been called upon to prioritise their training plans for 2012 because support is available to upskill employees and recruit apprentices and graduates.

Semta, the Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies, is urging companies to make training investment a New Year’s resolution.

With new funding from the Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), Semta is working with employers to develop sustainable solutions to sector challenges such as the competitiveness of the UK supply chain, barriers to hiring apprentices and increasing the number of SMEs hiring graduates.

The organisation is offering a range of cost-effective training interventions, covering leadership and management, technical skills and productivity improvement, and, through the free Semta Apprenticeship Service, can manage and fund apprentice training.

Following the CBI Industrial Trends Survey, revealing a continuing weakening of order books, training is being touted as a means to improve productivity, boost orders and increase profitability.

Philip Whiteman, chief executive of Semta, said: “Businesses in our sectors account for over half of the total value of the UK’s exports so the right engineering and technology skills are essential to the UK’s economic prosperity.

“Employers that we work with generally see a 6:1 return on their training investment. That’s because we work with businesses to identify their specific skill needs and implement training that will meet these needs, it’s about making a clever investment in training.”

“However, with our research showing that almost a fifth of employers in our sectors have skills gaps within their organisations, the first step is for all companies to take an honest look at their business challenges and work with Semta to identify exactly what development will make them more competitive.

“The latest N/SVQ data demonstrates a slight decline in the number of registrations compared to the same period last year.

“Worryingly, the biggest drop was in level 3 registrations which fell 9%. Looking to the year ahead, it is so important that businesses understand the importance of upskilling to higher competency levels and growing their own future talent to tackle skills gaps and shortages.”

As research has show that nearly a third of high tech manufacturing firms had recruited from outside the UK due to a lack of suitably qualified people resident here, an ability to ‘grow our own’ has become a focus of Semta.

As a result Semta has teamed with leading employers and the National Apprenticeship Service to launch the Apprentice Ambition, a 10-point plan designed to raise the number of advanced and higher level apprenticeship registrations from 8,000 to 16,000 by 2016 by overcoming the barriers to take up.

The Apprenticeship Service component offers a managed apprenticeship process, from advertising the role, assessing specific training needs, and filtering high calibre applicants, through to securing funding, working with a recognised training provider and ensuring the quality of the programme.

Semta has also secured £5 million of UKCES investment to increase the skills of the existing workforce and to bring in new talent through the recruitment of both graduates and apprentices.

The funding will be used to bolster productivity and competitiveness of supply chain companies, increase the number of SMEs that recruit an apprentice from 11% to 20% by 2016, and increasing the number of SMEs that recruit science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates.

Philip Whiteman added: “Skills, particularly in our wealth producing sectors, are vitally important to strengthening the economy.

“Both industry and government are increasingly aware of the role that skills have to play in the UK’s prosperity and I believe the achievements of the last year will put us on the front foot for success in 2012, helping more employers to upskill existing staff, take on new talent and recruit apprentices.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .