Skills Event Part 1: Underemployment and Workforce Planning in Scotland

In Partnership with:

UnderemploymentEDAS Position

Friday, 6 November 2015

Ishabel Bremner: Chair of EDAS Skills Policy Group

Background:

• Route Map for Common Ambition

• Skills Policy Group

• Key themes

Underemployment - issues discussed by Skills Group:

• Workforce planning

• Underemployment of graduates and young people

• Parity of esteem

• Future talent pipeline

Next Steps:

• A public Storify of the event

• Feedback to Skills Policy Group

• Write up findings aligned with the Route Map publication

• Share with all EDAS members early in 2016

Professor Ewart Keep

Under-employment and workforce planning

Ewart KeepSKOPE

Oxford University

Under-employment has two dimensions:

1. People want to work more hours than they are currently being offered

2. Their skills are being under-utilised

The quest for more hours

• In 2013 there were 256,000 workers in Scotland who wanted more hours of work then they were currently getting.

• This meant 10.3% of the Scottish workforce was under-employed.

• By November 2014, the figure was down to 9.6% and lower than the UK average (9.9%)

Give us a (bigger) job

• ONS figures suggest that at present 33% of Scottish workers in temporary employment could not find a permanent job

• 15% of part-time workers wanted but could not find a full-time job

• Both are slightly below the UK average

Skill utilisation – a considerable mystery?

Employers have been gifted, largely at public and student (and their family’s) expense with a massively more highly qualified AND skilled workforce than was the case 25 years ago.

Instead of treating this as a huge (free) resource to be deployed to support revolution change in their product offerings and quality, product and service innovation, and ways of operating, many organisations have carried on as though nothing had changed. Many jobs have often hardly altered at all since they were done by a school leaver with the equivalent of O Levels.

And employers themselves dimly recognise this

In the 2013 UK-wide NESS survey, 48% of employers admitted that they had staff who were over-skilled and over-qualified for the job they were currently doing, amounting to 4.3 million workers or 16% of the total workforce.

The OECD’s PIAAC survey indicated that the UK labour market had the 2nd lowest demand for workers educated beyond compulsory schooling, and the 2nd highest level of over-qualification (30%) out of 22 countries.

A Microsoft survey of office workers

• Process driven tasks dominate many workers’ lives. 71% thought ‘a productive day in the office’ meant clearing their e-mails.

• 51% of 18-25 year olds believe that attending internal meetings signifies ‘productivity’.

• When asked, ‘when was the last time you felt you made a major contribution to your organisation?’, 23% responded that they believed they had never managed this. Only 8% thought they had made a major contribution in the last year.

Poor job design and poor skills usage

• 45% said they had less than 30 minutes day to think without distractions

• 41% did not feel empowered to think differently• 42% did not think they had the opportunity to make a

difference at work• 38% said, ‘the business is very process-driven and spends little

time on doing things differently or being innovative’.SOURCE: Microsoft, 2013 The Daily Grind

This begs the question – who designs jobs?• Specialists consultants – external• OD function within organisation• Senior Management• Line managers/supervisors (do it this way…)• Production managers/process engineers• Cost control system/accountants • Quality standards designers ISO9000/control and audit system managers• HR function• Health and safety system, rules and processes• ICT and software systems designers/suppliers• Plant and equipment suppliers• Garage chains/franchise management systems and the specifications they develop• Historical precedent• Customers – large ones and individuals• Statutory regulation (e.g. in care sector)• Professional bodies

Sadly, we can’t answer the question

Because there is no overview research on who actually designs jobs in UK organisations.

We know something about job design (what it looks like), but not who does it, or what thinking (if any) lies behind their decisions.

Policy answers?

1. UKCES - HPWO2. SFC skills utilisation pilots3. Welsh Government’s sectoral pilots (creative industries and

construction)4. OECD – Vocational Pathways (in education and the labour

market)5. Workforce planning

Workforce planning

1. Recruitment planning2. Succession planning3. Planning staff progression pathways and matching skills to job

openings4. Spotting demographic ‘bulges’ in the workforce and resultant skills

problems5. Deploying skills effectively6. Helping inform planning about education and training provision

both in terms of numbers, levels and new types of skill requirement

In other words…..

• A reasonably sophisticated workforce planning system underpins most of the current policy moves on skills utilisation.

• Whether policy makers understand this or not is an open question.

The problem: workforce planning, nice to have but….

• Much talked about, seldom practiced

• Vast bulk of LMI is based on economic/occupational modelling not any direct feed from employers about future intentions or need.

• Many claim that it is impossible (world is too fast moving)

Examples of where it didn’t happen…

• Average age of a coded welder in Scotland (last time I looked) = 57 years old.

• Railway overhead line engineers and signalling engineers. Stop/go investment leads to problems

• The wider ‘technician crisis’ which was foreseeable once firms took a sustained training holiday after the early 1980s. The ‘looming’ crisis has been on the cards for 25 years plus!

A spot market for labour?

• One form of workforce planning may actually worsen under-employment problems. It is where the organisation has a very small core, and a large peripheral workforce, that are on very flexible contracts. The aim of the planning is to ‘match’ labour supply to current demand for labour on a daily basis – not unlike the C19 hiring at the dock gates model.

• Works for the firm, probably increased hours mis-match under-employment.

The basic components:

1. Idea of age profile of different sections/skill levels of the workforce

2. Turnover (past, current and trends)3. Patterns and levels of recruitment4. Retirements5. Known promotion, which open up a replacement need6. Expansion plans (if any)7. Known capital investment/technological changes

Skills – monitoring the workforce

1. Appraisals and training plans2. Lessons learned from projects/new activities3. Line management spotting skill needs and development

opportunities4. Mentoring5. Database that records the skills of the workforce (this needs

to go beyond courses and qualifications).

Ladders and specialisms

• Career structures need to be looked at. Skills development is not just for the job of tomorrow, but years down the line.

• Identifying potential and growing your own

• Management ladders and also technical specialist/expert ladders (we took our best specialist and made them into our worst manager). Lateral as well as vertical development matters!

Management matters

• A lot of front line management in the UK is low quality, poorly qualified, and unable to develop staff (c.f. Germany’s meisters) or deploy skills to optimal effect.

• HR has been ‘devolved’ to the line, with very mixed results. Time and incentives for managers to take these responsibility seriously are often lacking.

Building enhanced learning into work

We know that certain configurations of work organisation, job design and people management practices support and embed:1. Better on-the-job learning (expansive learning environments)2. Better skills utilisation3. More workplace innovation4. Potentially higher levels of productivity

Characteristics of a learning rich workplace:

• Confidence and trust in managers and colleagues• Mutual learning and support• Giving and receiving feedback without blame• Learning from experience, positive or negative• Learning from colleagues, clients and visitors• Locating and using knowledge from outside sources• Attention to the emotional dimension of work• Discussing and reviewing learning opportunities• Reviewing work processes and opportunities for quality improvement

This isn’t rocket science!

• These kinds of systems and processes have been laid out in HR textbooks (and ignored) for the last 40 years.

• We know what we need to do – it’s just that we don’t do it.

How does planning tie in to skills utilisation?

• If managers are unaware of what skills their workforce possesses, they will probably not use them optimally.

• The key is matching both existing skills and training (formal and informal) opportunities to actual skill needs inside work and projects.

• When I taught Executive MBA students at Warwick, their main complaint was that their skills had improved, but the job they did had not changed in ways that allowed them to deploy their learning to any productive effect.

ROAs and SIPs won’t work without better workforce planning

• In the long run, neither the Regional Outcome Agreements (ROAs) or the sectoral Skills Investment Plans (SIPs) will produce their intended long-term results, unless firms get better at forecasting their own future skill needs.

• Skills utilisation will not improve unless firms audit their workforce’s skills and plan how to deploy these effectively.

The weak spot is….

Job design

• The UK has far fewer workplaces with high discretion/high learning jobs. It has a lot of narrow, highly prescribed, ‘lean’ jobs and these may be getting smaller.

• Digital Taylorism (Brown and Lauder) – “we want fewer fighter pilots and more drone operators”

Ed Monaghan

EDAS SKILLS EVENT

Ed Monaghan

Background• Ed Monaghan, CEO of Mactaggart & Mickel Group Ltd, Chair of

Construction Scotland and Scottish Advisory Committee of CITB

• Also a director of City Legacy - the consortium that delivered the Athletes Village for the 2014 Commonwealth Games

• Director of Rosemount and The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Scottish GovernmentScotland’s Youth Employment Strategy

• Increase uptake of work-related learning and qualifications in

the senior phase of school (new) Project reviewing Skills for Work

• Provide earlier careers guidance

• Introduce a new standard for work experience

• All secondary schools to have active partnerships with employers

• Introduce New ‘pre-apprenticeships’ ‘Foundation Apprenticeships’ and ‘Advanced apprenticeships’ (new) Foundation & Advanced Apprenticeships – Civil engineering Pre apprenticeships construction crafts

Skills Development Scotland SIP Overview• Sector definition

– Complex and multi- faceted

– Main sub sectors• Specialised construction (including BSE) activities• Construction of buildings• Architectural and engineering activities• Civil engineering• Manufacture of construction related goods• Retail of construction related goods

• Employment

– Employment 164,200 in 2012 (6.9% of total Scottish employment), but decline of 23% from

2008 (when it was 212,500 and 8.4%)

– Decline focused on central belt – (Glasgow; Edinburgh; S Lanarkshire)

– Largest sub sector decline (29%) in specialised construction (including BSE) activities

• Electrical installation; Plumbing, heat and air-conditioning installation; Joinery installation

• Largest absolute decline – house building and civil engineering

– In terms of occupations, almost 40,000 skilled trades jobs were lost over the last 5 years

accounting for over 50% of all job losses

The School, College & HEi Employee Partnership

• Vocational training & Skills for Work - delivered through colleges

• We need to recognise that the geography of Scotland has an impact on delivery locally

• Who should deliver Work Experience going forward?

• We need more Active Partnerships between Schools, Colleges, HEi’s and Employers

• We need to see the development of more Technical Partnerships addressing the balance of what is taught, and what industry needs

• We need to work jointly to support College Lecturers on their CPD’s

• We need to utilise the services of the CSiC to modernise our offering…………..

Employer of Choice• Employee Engagement Strategy

oSuccess is almost a by product of having a highly engaged team, people with the right ethos and values oRegularly survey employee engagement levels oListening to our people oCreated five employer of choice action teams o77 proposals made and 66 implemented oTalent Management SystemsoLearning and Development – pathways to support

our employeeso Annual Health Screening – extra mile

Resourcing for the Future• Senior Board/Management Development

• Emerging Leaders Programme

• Succession Planning - sourcing from our current talent pool

• Graduate & Apprentice Training

• Internal training programmes e.g. General Foreman & Sales Consultants

Walk the Talk• Bi-annual Shareholder Forums

• Monthly Board meeting formal communication

• No hourly paid employees – all paid the Living Wage / upper quartile

• Investors In People Gold Standard & Investors in Young People Standard

• Shared Paternity Leave – match payment of maternity leave pay

The Softer Side• Cycle to Work & Computers at Work Scheme

• Hardship Loans

• Company support social activities

• Counselling Service

• CSR - £28,567 raised this year for Cancer Research

Skills Event Part 1: Underemployment and Workforce Planning in Scotland

In Partnership with: