Utility firms need an up-skilling strategy

The government is committed to up-skilling the British workforce because it recognises that the UK faces a significant skills shortage in the coming years.

Neglecting this will cost the economy billions of pounds, but at a granular level, every business’s workforce in the UK has to be improved – through understanding, training and applications that drive them forward. Things are changing, but we’re still a long way off where we need to be.

The old story of how your chief executive was once one of the packer boys, or the apprentice technician at the age of 17, are few and far between. There needs to be far more of these stories, not just because they make lovely stories to tell around the dinner table, but because our country needs you, from an economic perspective.

That’s why government funding should be dedicated to support value-added training programmes. It recognises that training should not just be a tick box exercise – it needs to apply pragmatic tools and demonstrate quantifiable results. Although HR departments should always be invovled with training programmes, I believe that it’s vitally important for the chief executive of any sized firm to be a part of training because it should be about making individuals better, broadening understanding of the wider businesses and its suppliers, and how efficiencies can be generated to aid the growth of a business.

Because of this, Whitehall supports initiatives such as the Business Improvement Techniques (BIT) funded workforce development programme. It is a vehicle for people to understand the principles of lean manufacturing while, at the same time, enhance the functional skills and health and safety objectives of employers.

BIT is a nationally-accredited programme with structured learning outcomes. It’s designed around a classroom-based core, but with accreditation only given to those that can demonstrate tangible cost savings, a rise in quality, and morale and cultural improvements that will ultimately lead to progression both for the indivudual, and turnover.

The accreditation itself is a national BTEC Level 2 qualification encompassing five critical elements – a vocational-related qualification in operational management; functional skills (in other words, maths and English); personal learning and thinking; employee rights and responsibilities; and the lean technical certificate (which includes CI, Kaizen and 5S).

This is an exceptionally cost-effective programme. A typical commitment from the employer is to release the learner for 12 classroom days per year; this costs the employer around £1,000. However, the results are impressive – an average of £4,500 per learner in cost savings in the first year. We also see that 95 percent of learners are passing their functional skills, a priority for the Government and for enlightened employers.

The BIT programme is available to all small and medium sized businesses in England, with approved providers utilising funding from colleges to leverage Skills Funding Agency finance. JTJ does this via its college support network to deliver exceptional training with proven practioners. It also builts a strong relationship with colleges throughout the UK to offer businesses higher end training and bespoke programmes to develop their total workforce, not just the shopfloor.

Every sector has its own challenges, each and every business has its way, but what is common amongst us all is that we are always looking to progress at an individual level, as well as a corporate one. Training for trainings sake is no longer an option – it has to be the key catalyst for growth.