Skill bill

It is probably process manufacturing that has been left most challenged by 25 years of technological evolution, reckons Terry Watts, boss of Proskills, the sector skills council whose job it is to predict and deal with the industry's training needs. There has been, he says, "a massive influx of technology". Automation has assailed places you wouldn't expect, like in quarries that are "now run from rooms that wouldn't be out of place at an air traffic control centre". His point is these industries have not needed to recruit people for a long while; they could rely on the skills of an existing workforce. But the number of highly skilled people is falling. Or, as Watts puts it: "Trouble is, those guys probably did their training or their apprenticeships back in the '80s. Time pushes on and they're looking to retire in the next 10 or 15 years." Some of his sector's larger companies (among others, he quotes Pilkington) are, he says, exemplary in the way they train and develop their staff and the smaller firms have been reliant on the 'overspill' from such training. UK process manufacturing employs around 850,000 people and there are only about 700 apprentices at any one time. "It is not enough," Watts says. "We need to get the industry back into the habit of training." The statistics suggest that printing is the sector facing the biggest challenge, although the fact that it has the largest number of very small companies does skew the figures. People made redundant from big printing firms in the 70s, 80s and 90s set themselves up in business – there's one in every business park, Watts points out. "They may not have been trained properly themselves, or not for a long while, so tend not to understand the value of training." And while few companies would put an employee in front of an expensive piece of kit without any training, formal training for recognised qualifications is only really done by colleges and public sector providers; and they, too, have lost the habit. Kit suppliers like HP, Canon, Heidelberg, and Fuji plug some of the gaps by providing training for companies that buy their equipment. Indeed, Watts says that some have had to do more than that to get operators who have been hired up to a basic standard. Back in the colleges, things are "a bit of a mess". The government's simplification agenda requires the training outfits it funds to have contracts of £500,000 each. "A lot of the companies who provide skills development to our sector are small and don't have a half million turnover." That means spending time brokering deals between lead providers and sub-contractors. Easy for government which has fewer contractors to deal with, but, Watts points out, "everyone takes a cut, so less of the money is going to the employers". That said, funding is generally a good news story for process manufacturing which has, Watts boasts, secured over 30% of the all-England upskilling cake. Not that it's easy to get it where it is needed. Proskills has good relationships with about 10,000 of the 75,000 companies in its sector. "We just can't manage many more than that, we haven't got the resources." He hopes Proskills' web tools, which demonstrate how to earn a return on training, will help. And if he has a single message, it is for manufacturers who may they have been 'once bitten' by ineffectual training solutions to give it another chance. Lean training that may be old news in engineering can deliver up to an 18-fold return on investment. Simon Jones, HR director at printing group Polestar, echoes many of Watts' theories. "If we have new equipment, the supplier will do the training but it's only a small part," Jones says. "We haven't made a huge amount of investments [in equipment] because of the state of the industry, so training is done in house on the kit we have." However, Polestar – a sizable outfit – is fortunate to have a central training contract with the Skills Funding Agency and can draw down funding for NVQs and apprentices. It worked closely with Unite the union and has teamed up with Leeds College to deliver on-site training at the printer's Sheffield, Colchester, Leeds and, soon, Wakefield plants. Combining that with online facilities, the programme delivers NVQ Levels 2 and 3 in several disciplines – print, finishing, engineering, health and safety, and business improvement. Of Polestar's 2,500 staff, 500 have already been through the programme and 300 more are in training. Jones says it's about "giving people up-to-date skills", enabling people who came into the industry a while ago via a formal apprenticeship to update their skills. He likens the experience to going travelling. "Once you start, it opens your mind to a new way of thinking." It keeps employees employable, he adds. "Nothing's a given these days; unfortunately we've had to make some staff reductions and at least if they have a recent training qualification to add to an apprenticeship they did a while ago, it shows a new employer not only that they're up to date, but are keen to learn. And we can be boastful to our customers that we have a highly motivated and trained workforce." Looking ahead, though, Jones says the majority of helpful funding has come from the now defunct Train to Gain scheme. Its demise could have an impact, he fears. Growing gap In the engineering sector, funding is an even bigger issue, contends Philip Whiteman, chief executive of Semta, the sector skills council for science, engineering and manufacturing technologies. Like Proskills' Terry Watts, he recognises the demographic challenge or, as he puts it, "lots of baby boomers retiring with high levels of technical skill and not enough people coming through the system to replace them", let alone provide the skills needed to grow new markets, like renewable energy. He recognises the challenge of generating the right skills to succeed in so-called advanced manufacturing "because they are slightly different from [those produced by] the usual engineering apprentice and training programmes". But the most important skills challenge is recognition of the need to invest, says Whiteman. "In the past, many companies have expected government to pay for training, especially at the lower levels." If there's to be no levy, and the sector doesn't want a training levy, he says, "in the future they are going to have to invest themselves". Unfortunately, though, there are still many companies who regard training as a cost. He agrees that the bigger companies – like Ford, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and GKN who are all working with Semta – are more aware of the demographic issues and are focusing on strategic workforce planning, looking years ahead to identify skills needs. Medium-sized players are being supported with diagnostic tools, identifying skills solutions to address business objectives, and developing a business plan. Training in smaller companies is a bigger problem: "We are just working out how to do it ourselves because it's a difficult job," Whiteman admits. The route may be through membership of Chambers of Commerce, the CBI, EEF or via regional employer groups. A cat and mouse game is being played at this end of the training spectrum with everyone waiting to see what happens when new local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) replace regional development agencies (RDAs). The trouble is, Whiteman points out, RDAs held a pot of money, LEPs won't. He urges manufacturers to look to their own resources: "We need to help the sector understand the economic case for training because if they fail to invest, nobody else will and the sector will suffer." One SME that clearly understands the economic case for training is Assembled Electronics Solutions – which is based, jokes partner in the business Nigel Maris, "in that well-known hotbed of industry, Stratford-upon-Avon". The 15-strong firm designs and manufactures electronic components for ultimate customers like Aston Martin, Jaguar Land Rover and Rolls-Royce. The original company was based here for 40 years, mostly making bare electronic circuit boards. But that work went to Asia. "We had to reinvent ourselves," says Maris of the new business that was launched 18 months ago. That meant clearing the factory out, redesigning the layout and moving the business up the food chain. Three quarters of the old staff were retained and a couple of new roles added. Now, says Maris, retraining has meant that everyone multi-tasks – assembly, testing, inspection. Everybody, including the two business partners, went through NVQ business improvement training, new product introduction training and the modern multi-skilling approach. "There's real flexibility," Maris says. Taking one or other of two teams out for whole days of facilitated improvement and 5S training had "staff questioning my sanity when we were so busy". His solution to cynicism about upskilling comes in three parts: have a clear vision, communicate it, and get buy-in. Another company with an impressive client list is 150-strong, Swindon-based Kembrey Wiring Systems. It plays a significant role in supplying aircraft and aero-engine programmes including the Trent 1000 for Rolls Royce, Nimrod MRA4 and Harrier GR9 upgrade programmes for BAE. For head of HR Jacquie Burgess, upskilling was all about working smarter and not always doing things the way they used to be done. A major quest for the company – and a reason for upskilling – was to achieve recognition as part of the aerospace industry's SC21 supply chain initiative. Upskilling the workforce in lean manufacturing, focusing on business key performance indicators, embedding continuous improvement, effecting a real change in mindset, and more besides, all became training objectives. "It was about being able to give everybody in the organisation a vision of where they fitted into the overall picture," says Burgess. Departments tended to work in silos, each with its own agenda but not really understanding internal supply and demand relationships. "We felt the training would help us unfold that." As with Polestar, a local college helped with the delivery. In Kembrey's case, people from the shopfloor chose trainers with whom they felt most comfortable, resulting in the appointment of Swindon College, whose principle trainer "immersed himself in the business from the classroom and on the shopfloor". Train to Gain and the West of England Aerospace Forum helped with funding and even though the future in that respect is less certain, Burgess is optimistic. "The funding routes are not always visible," she says. And she is confident enough to be working with external SMEs to help them understand what might be available and what the government might be well advised to make more visible. This message is reinforced from the traditional and labour-intensive world of West Midlands-based forge WH Tildesley. MD John Tildesley is a long-time convert to the cause of training but makes no bones about the need for funding. "There are a lot of companies, particularly smaller ones that don't train. If the government is serious about wanting to upskill the workforce, the only way to get them on board is with an incentive, which means training grants. If you don't train you don't replace; you downsize and disappear." In a business where the skills inherent in operating a forge were traditionally passed from fathers to sons and by unskilled workers standing alongside skilled workers, the last 10 to 15 years have seen the introduction of what John Tildesley calls "a proper structure of skill sets" measured by NVQs. "By offering well organised training, you attract the right sort of person who can see they have a future... We spend a lot on wages so we want skilled people and want to look after them." And the business has a plan: "We monitor people retiring; we know where our skills shortage is going to be," concludes Tildesley.