The state of training and development

Much has been written over the years about the state of training and development in the UK. ‘State’ in the sense that it ‘is in a state’. For example: the nuclear industry is lacking some huge number of scientists, I forget the exact number, no doubt amplified by the ‘yes to nuclear / no to nuclear’ indecision by Government. Now that a decision has been taken – it does hanker back to the early 1990s though as it is still unclear as to what the decision to build and by who will mean – the industry finds itself severely lacking in talent. In another example, we have a glut of graduates and nowhere near enough graduate jobs available to satisfy their – and society’s – needs.

Regardless of your politics – whether pro-nuclear or not, whether blaming Coalition education policy and the lack of private sector jobs, or not – the ‘state’ of training and development in the UK remains a concern.

Look at Europe. There has been the recent example of the German manufacturing sector advertising throughout the EU for vocational apprentices. Offering language training in addition to a range of jobs after completing apprenticeships, theirs is a long-term and considered response to demographics, as well as the economic realities. The German economy is booming – and has a history of stable growth, even with the introduction of East German structural problems – and so they have acted as part of an accepted strategy; accepted that is we assume by management through to Works Council members.

Shades of ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’ perhaps, for those who remember the TV series or have caught the repeats on ‘Dave’ or wherever. Maybe so; but what stands out about this example is that the UK has made significant steps in improving long-term training and development of its workforce, but failed to deliver on a number of factors that act in partnership with a more skilful workforce.

Quoted in Grugulis (2009), a managing director at a UK company in the early 1990s stated: “I’ve actually got the [union] convenor saying to me ‘We’ve got to watch this multi-skill thing, because it is too interesting for them [the workforce]’”. I would hope that business has progressed since the early 1990s in this sense, but perhaps we have other issues to replace this attitude?

From the employer’s side: the Government has had to legislate to ensure that employees have a right to time off to be trained. This has been tinkered with and diluted, but the simple fact that a law had to be passed in order to invest in skills development beggars’ belief.

The attitude still seems to be that you have to learn on the job or by picking up skills from a training course (surely learning is more than this? Discuss). The obsession with attaining qualifications at the expense of demonstrated experience affects the recruitment and selection arena more, but it seeps into training and development too. An easy short-listing criteria it is true – if you have not got a degree in X, then you don’t collect your £200 and pass to the interview – but surely employers are missing out not only on experiences from a wide range of potential employees and by that I mean exposure to good training and development practices too. Surely IT can provide solutions to this blockage? Good practice does abound though – look at JCB investing in its own school effectively (as they had become frustrated with the inaction of the Government perhaps?).

From the employee’s side: a general desire to complete the minimum in order to get more social time?! A subjective view of course, given the UK’s structural issues in providing jobs for graduates, providing part-time hours for more rather than full-time hours for more and so on. After all, Canada and Australia are still profitable and sound: can we learn from them too? Yet, personal experience sees more drive and desire to succeed from other nations than from our own generation of potential employees.

Overall then, my general point is that if we has a culture of training and development in the UK rather that bolting it on afterwards, we would be in better shape. Sure, we have some iMac jobs in the country but far too many McJobs – and a workforce that is happy to accept that ‘state’. I see excellent students and employees, committed to their own development; I see excellent employers investing for the future; and I see far too many that fit either category.

How on earth can we ‘wake people up’ and out of this ‘state’?

John Hepworth

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