So many business people we talk to complain that it’s really hard to find good staff, which is supported by a recent survey which said that recruiters are struggling to fill posts, (with a knock-on effect on salaries). The UK economy is forecast to grow, but this could of course be hindered if we lack the skilled labour.
The media expose us to HR issues such as gender gaps, zero-contract hours, and the impact of the living-wage – not that they are unimportant – but the biggest issue to our clients is: “why the skill shortage?”
We know that businesses complain that apprenticeships are not of high enough quality….so is the education system failing us? I have been on the board of our local Education Business Partnership for many years and I see at first hand the excellent work our team carry out bridging the gap between schools and the business; but unfortunately I’ve also witnessed the effects of austerity, not only on our funding as a charity, but also on schools budgets too. We even have a local higher education college about to significantly down-size, as the funding is not available to support the local students who would like and need vocational training.
So staff retention becomes crucial and as employers we must understand why people leave – a recent report stated that almost 1 in 3 people who resign said they did so to improve their life balance, whilst another third said it was for career advancement – and what we can do to improve retention rates.
Our clients find that our approach of using a “forcefield” analysis really helps: it generates great actions that can be easily implemented.
Please contact us if you would like to know more or would like a forcefield template.