CIPD conference 2012: Employers need to step up their efforts to build the UK workforce of the future
8 November 2012
Employers need to do more to help young people and those leaving education, if the UK is to have the workforce that it needs in the future. That was one of the major themes to emerge from a keynote panel discussion at the second day of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) annual conference being held in Manchester.
Thurs 8 Nov, 2012
Employers need to do more to help young people and those leaving education, if the UK is to have the workforce that it needs in the future. That was one of the major themes to emerge from a keynote panel discussion at the second day of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) annual conference being held in Manchester.Michael Davis, chief executive of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills UK, told the conference that employers needed to step up to the plate as those without work experience faced significant challenges in getting into the workforce.
“The game has changed, and we need more employers to step up and take ownership [of this issue], “said Davis.
The topic was discussed as a new report by the Higher Education Careers Service Unit showed that 30 months after graduating 40% of those who left UK universities in 2009 were in non-graduate jobs.
Davis said that those leaving education were caught in a Catch-22 situation of ‘no job no experience, no experience no job’, referring to research indicating that only one in four employers have taken on a young person straight from the education system, in the last four years.
Young people also fared worse than those with experience, because most jobs being created were in SMEs [small-and-medium-sized enterprises], which tended to use informal methods of recruitment, which excluded young people because they didn’t have the necessary networks.
Fellow panel member, Ann Pickering, HR director at Telefonica O2 UK, said that the fact that most other employers preferred experience when hiring was “a massive opportunity for the company. If we do it correctly, we will leapfrog the competition, she said.
Pickering said that in the fast changing environment of the telecoms industry, precisely what skills would be needed in the future could not always be known. Instead she said Telefonica O2 had identified the type of people it needed, namely those with ‘digital skills, innovative, and with an entrepreneurial spirit.” “It is something about a state of mind,” she added.
Fellow panel member Toby Peyton-Jones, a member of Siemens’ management executive board, and a commissioner at the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, said the secret of building the UK’s workforce of tomorrow was investing in people year in year out. This included apprentices, and closer partnerships between academia and business.
Employers need to do more to help young people and those leaving education, if the UK is to have the workforce that it needs in the future. That was one of the major themes to emerge from a keynote panel discussion at the second day of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) annual conference being held in Manchester.Michael Davis, chief executive of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills UK, told the conference that employers needed to step up to the plate as those without work experience faced significant challenges in getting into the workforce.
“The game has changed, and we need more employers to step up and take ownership [of this issue], “said Davis.
The topic was discussed as a new report by the Higher Education Careers Service Unit showed that 30 months after graduating 40% of those who left UK universities in 2009 were in non-graduate jobs.
Davis said that those leaving education were caught in a Catch-22 situation of ‘no job no experience, no experience no job’, referring to research indicating that only one in four employers have taken on a young person straight from the education system, in the last four years.
Young people also fared worse than those with experience, because most jobs being created were in SMEs [small-and-medium-sized enterprises], which tended to use informal methods of recruitment, which excluded young people because they didn’t have the necessary networks.
Fellow panel member, Ann Pickering, HR director at Telefonica O2 UK, said that the fact that most other employers preferred experience when hiring was “a massive opportunity for the company. If we do it correctly, we will leapfrog the competition, she said.
Pickering said that in the fast changing environment of the telecoms industry, precisely what skills would be needed in the future could not always be known. Instead she said Telefonica O2 had identified the type of people it needed, namely those with ‘digital skills, innovative, and with an entrepreneurial spirit.” “It is something about a state of mind,” she added.
Fellow panel member Toby Peyton-Jones, a member of Siemens’ management executive board, and a commissioner at the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, said the secret of building the UK’s workforce of tomorrow was investing in people year in year out. This included apprentices, and closer partnerships between academia and business.
