Roundtable NOVEMBER report
2019
Perrin. Set up to develop industryready
graduates by giving them direct
access to real-life engineering projects,
AME - which recently won a coveted
Queens Anniversary award - has proved
extremely successful in this regard.
All of its three waves of graduates have
gone into industry jobs, and the centre
is now set to double in size.
“We’re not just delivering training,”
said Perrin, “we’re doing research and
developing a business and a product out
of that. I’ve seen us evolve from being a
metal bashing business making exhaust
pipes and now we’re making batteries
for electric vehicles…the students are
learning on those kind of projects.”
He added that this sort of training
is also key to developing the softer
skills that make someone useful to
a company: “how to communicate,
how to lead, how to get stuff done,
understanding how a business works
and the culture, how to present.”
The panel agreed that replicating
this approach more widely would have
real value, and Sarah Dhanda pointed
to a growing appetite at a policy level
to learn from success stories like this:
“We’re working with IfA (Institute for
Apprenticeships) on a root review
of engineering and manufacturing
standards, and there’s a real opportunity
to influence the institute and DfE,” she
said. “They keep telling us they want
to hear from people who are delivering
things, what’s working and what’s
not working so that they’ve got the
hard evidence to go back to ministers
and policymakers to influence what
engineering apprenticeships standards
look like.”
Upskilling existing engineers
Whilst a constant injection of fresh
talent is crucial to industry’s health, our
panelists were united on the importance
of ensuring that existing workers aren’t
left behind. “We talk a lot about STEM,
degrees and apprenticeships, which we
should do,” said Carl Perrin. “But we’ve
got to make the people who are already
in those businesses still relevant and
able to contribute. Upskilling and
retraining and introducing a culture of
lifelong learning is at least as important
as feeding the pipeline”
Louise Cowling agreed, adding
that this is arguably an even bigger
challenge than ensuring that graduates
and apprentices are up to speed. “We’re
seeing people in their 30s or 40s, still
with loads of time in front of them,
suddenly faced with things that
didn’t even exist in the language
five years ago,” she said. “It’s a
big issue and that is where all
customers are struggling.”
Upskilling the so-called
“neglected middle”, many of
whom won’t perhaps embrace
emerging technologies as readily
as digital natives, sounds a daunting
challenge. But Enginuity’s Dhanda
stressed that dealing with this issue is
not necessarily about turning everyone
into an expert. “I think people jump to
a conclusion that everybody needs to
be able to do software development, or
be an expert in cybersecurity. For some
people it’s just about helping them
understand what the terms mean in a
really-user friendly fashion.
“You’ve then got the middle layer,”
she added, “which is the people
whose jobs will change, that’s the real
challenge, it’s relatively easy for people
coming into the workforce because
you’ve got apprenticeships. It’s
your existing workforce, who
prob have another 20 – 30 years
left to work who actually need
different stratas of knowledge
and skills about data and the
internet of things.”
April 2020 / www.theengineer.co.uk 32
Skills loss through retirement
Another facet of the modern skills
challenge to rear its head in the
discussion was the problem of expertise
being lost as experienced engineers
retire. Our panel agreed that finding
effective ways of capturing and
passing on these skills should form an
important part of any organisation’s
skills strategy.
Kenan Griffth said that one way his
organisation has been addressing this
is through creating opportunities for
job sharing or part time working, that
help keep engineers approaching
retirement engaged for longer,
and also provide opportunities
for sharing skills. “It’s often
been the case that you leave
the business, and those skills
that you have leave with
you,” he said. “We’re deploying
regularly now job shares, parttime
working, to try and keep those
skills in the business.”
Hilary Leevers added that it’s
important that employers find ways
of including these older workers in
mentoring schemes so that they can
pass on their knowledge to te next
generations.
James Henshaw agreed, but added
that the flexibility to take part in these
kind of schemes should be extended
to all employees. “It’s not just about
those coming up to retirement age,” he
said. “There needs to be more flexibility
around employees in general, being
able to go out and share some of
their skills and experiences with
other organisations, within
education, within schools.
We’re fortunate at RS that we
have that flexibility – we’ve got
something like over 200 STEM
ambassadors – and the business
gives us the freedom for those
people to go out and talk to schools
and be mentors. And I know that’s
not the case with a lot of organisations.”
STEM/ Educating young people
Whilst much of the discussion focused
on the immediate skills challenges faced
by industry, our panel also touched on
Louise Cowling,
head of degree
apprenticeships, AMRC
we’ve got to make sure the people
already in businesses are still relevant
and able to contribute
Kenan Griffith - area
operations manager,
Southern Water
/www.theengineer.co.uk