“LET’S ADDRESS A LOOMING SKILLS MISMATCH”

If you want to keep valuable staff, offer them retraining or upskilling, says the boss of recruitment agency Pertemps

Good pay and generous perks used to be the two key things that a company could o er to get the best talent.

That’s still true to a certain extent, but there’s much more to it to keep the skilled people your company has recruited (often at some expense), and ensure they are happy to stay as the business grows and adapts to the changing business landscape.

For that, a company needs to be well managed, o er professional development, engage employees in more than just the nine to five, and provide retraining opportunities because the world of work is changing faster than most of us realise.

Carmen Watson is chair of one of the UK’s best-known recruitment agencies, Pertemps Network Group. She has worked in the recruitment industry for almost all her career and has experience and perspective on the issue.

“By around 2030 almost half of the workforce is going to have to be reskilled in some way,” she said. “Many industry sectors are increasingly adopting digital technology and there has been a huge rise in demand for people with skills in programming, data analytics and machine learning.

“There is also a big increase in companies asking for people with skills in the “green” sector, but many can’t yet properly define what they really mean by that.

“At Pertemps, on average we have around 31,000 people per month approach us for work, and it’s becoming increasingly evident that there is a skills mismatch which needs to be addressed if we are to meet the demands of the future.

“So it is important that recruiters like us work with companies, and both further and higher education centres to ensure a pipeline of talent is available with the skillsets we need.

Employers need to prioritise retraining and upskilling employees

“Retraining and upskilling existing employees should be a priority for employers to aid attraction and retention,” she added.

“Employers must demonstrate their understanding and appreciation of employees. What is your company doing to nurture, engage, develop, promote? There is a lot of untapped talent out there. Companies can show their commitment on their website, including case studies of people who have progressed through the business, their approach to equality, diversity and inclusion and what training opportunities they o er.

“Employers need to show total transparency so potential employees can see how they might fit into a business and what they can expect,” she added.

Carmen warns that the UK’s productivity (which is already an issue), will fall further if we can’t get the skills problem sorted.

There are, though, a number of initiatives currently in play which are addressing what support and coaching can be o ered to people who are in career transition.

“These are led by the Institute for Employment Studies and for those about to enter the jobs market, or return to it after a period of inactivity. There are also sector-based work academies,” said Carmen.

“These initiatives will help fill a gap which has been there for a long time. Then the government needs to keep banging the drum about the way the world of work is changing, encouraging people to skill up. Smaller businesses in particular often don’t have the time or resource to skill up their sta or identify what skills they will need in the future and need the help of government.”

For Carmen, it’s about pulling these strands together. “Currently, if a company makes more than 20 people redundant, it must register that with the government. Let’s flip that around and consider a central government database where businesses can update if they are looking to recruit more than 15 to 20 employees. That will give us a better perspective on what skills are in short supply, where there are clusters of opportunity.”

Once the government has that data, Carmen argues, we, collectively, can better plan training needs to ensure that the graduates who emerge from education three to four years from now have the right skillsets for the modern world.