What’s the Quality of Your Employability Skills?

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

Following her excellent post on diversity, Susan Popoola returns to question what skills make you employable. (Ed Scrivener)

What’s the Quality of Your Employability Skills?

“Every child deserves a champion — an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.” Rita Pierson

Can you still remember you’re first job?  How good were you? Technically probably quite capable if you had the natural aptitude and the right training and development. However, what about those employability skills that we continually talk about in relation to young people these days – how well would you fare if you were entering the work place today?

You’ve probably heard people talking about employability skills even if you don’t know what they are.  According to the Confederation of Business Industry (CBI) “ Businesses want graduates who not only add value but who have the skills to help to transform their organisation in the face of continuous and rapid economic and technological change. All graduates - whatever their degree discipline - need to be equipped with employability skills.”

The CBI goes on to explain, “Employability covers a broad range of non-academic or softer skills and abilities which are of value in the workplace. It includes the ability to work in a team; a willingness to demonstrate initiative and original thought; self-discipline in starting and completing tasks to deadline.

Specifically, according to the CBI this include

• Self-management
• Teamwork
• Business and customer awareness
• Problem solving
• Communication and literacy
• Application of numeracy
• Application of Information technology
• Entrepreneurship
• Underpinning all skills - a positive attitude.

As you will probably know, these requirements are not just for graduates. So may I ask once more – regardless of your qualifications, how good are your employability skills?

I started thinking about this a back in March when I was at a Business Reception with Chuka Umunna (Shadow Business Secretary) as Guest Speaker talking about Labour’s enterprise and business policy.  The event featured a questions and answers session, which Chuka very clearly tried to use to gain insights into the perspective sof local businesses.

There was some discussion over local versus international trade. With a few people talking about the fact that they just traded locally and preferred doing so.  There was then talk about bodies such as UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), which is aimed at helping and encourage international trade.  Someone spoke about the fact that he does a lot of business in the Middle East but has received next to no support from UKTI, as they don’t understand his business model.  He as others expressed the concern that UKTI have a key focus on big businesses and do not understand and support the vast and growing amount of business that is done between small and medium sized businesses.  Are they prepared for the 21st century business environment? – I begun to wonder.

Inevitably, there was mention of young people and their “short fallings”.  The interesting thing – as highlighted by a Ken Robinson, RSA Animate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U), the education system hasn’t really changed that much over the years. I know there have been some curriculum changes around the outskirts and the way in which exams are taken has evolved over time.  Fundamentally, however, the education  that young people receive today is not that different from the education that you and I received. 

Did the system somehow provide us with employability skills that young people today were not taught or ‘refused’ to learn.  Alternatively have we taken away the entry-level jobs that we had that allowed us to develop these skills on the job.  (A ladder that good apprenticeships may hopefully begin to provide.)   Whatever the case - what else can we do?  According to Rita Pierson (an American Educator)   “Every child deserves a champion — an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.” Or what do we do with our very own children? 

I’m not saying for one minute that there is no issue with young people and that they do not have to take some responsibility – I am however saying that we – especially in the people space should be more willing to give them a chance and use our skills to support and enable them.  Or are we like UKTI (has been described) unable to adapt to a 21st Century reality (whilst simultaneously doing whatever we can to change the education system to be more fit for purpose).

Read about Susan and our other authors here

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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

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If you would like to be a guest writer for Discuss HR, you can find more information here.  Our next guest writer week is the week commencing 26^th August.

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P.S. Look out for the announcement tomorrow about the forthcoming #HRUKLI networking events

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HR as Curators of Skills

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

We welcome our latest new writer to the blog; although Mervyn Dinnen couldn’t be described as a new writer as I am sure many of you will already know and read Mervyn’s numerous blog posts.  Today he looks at the workforce of the future. (Ed Scrivener)

HR as Curators of Skills

“The world is moving forward exponentially. We are preparing students for a world that we don't know, for jobs that haven't been created yet, and many that don't yet exist, using technology that has yet to be invented”

My son is in his A Level year and I’ve recently been accompanying him on university visits. Given the current levels of unemployment amongst the under 25s it’s not surprising that employability plays a big part in the open day presentations. There is usually an impressive list of jobs that alumni have obtained over the last 4 years and a wide variety of career paths that people with a particular degree have followed.

The quote above was taken from one of them. It was from a slide -as a regular conference blogger/tweeter I invariably have a tablet ready to take notes, even in a presentation such as this!

For me it also sums up an interesting conundrum for HR when it comes to attracting tomorrow’s workforce. Several of our businesses don’t yet know what jobs they will be recruiting for in 5 years’ time, or what skills they will need to find.

One thing we do pretty much know is that our workforces will become more flexible, so the need to be able to find, engage and keep in touch with a range of skills will become vital.

Last year I was at a two day conference and saw Heidrick & Struggles present their global talent report, which included a look ahead to 2015 and beyond. One of their key predictions was that today’s entrants in to the job market will have had at least 14 jobs by the time they are 38 – which is probably correct given the fragmented, part time, project nature of many of today’s roles.

It did lead me to wonder where the leaders of tomorrow will come from. How someone who shifts between so many roles/projects will acquire the capabilities to lead a business or function. I had the opportunity to facilitate an unconference session the following day and threw this out to a dozen senior HR people.

The conversation was interesting. Starting with today’s graduate recruitment and current staff projections and gaps, we then thought ahead. A lot of today’s pre-occupations – culture, engagement, talent development and staff retention – would be very different in a flexible workforce where people would be working on a project basis, remotely and possibly internationally. Being engaged for their proven skills rather than a track record of positions, and possibly using contracts that bind them to an outcome not an employer.

The conclusion we drew was:

‘Maybe in the future HR will be curators of skills, not developers of skills’

There is little doubt in my mind that HR will need take on an increasing workload of workforce planning, becoming the people who know how to put together project teams for a whole range of tasks. They will also be the link between the business and the outsourced workforce.

I can’t believe that businesses will continue indefinitely to pay third party recruiters for temporary or flexible staff, particularly on hourly or daily mark-up/margin basis. It will be within the HR function that relationships with individuals are maintained, necessary skills are identified and validated and outcomes are monitored.

And I’m pretty sure that the necessary organisational transformation from a predominantly employed workforce to a largely flexible one will keep most HR professionals occupied.

So those are some of my thoughts on HR and the future workforce…let me know what you think

Read about Mervyn and our other authors here

*****

Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

*****

If you would like to be a guest writer for Discuss HR, you can find more information here.  Our next guest writer week is the week commencing 29^th April.

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