The recent business news has been full of discussion around the idea of The Great Resignation – a purported mass exit of the workforce. Around 25% of UK workers are apparently planning to change jobs within the next few months in the wake of a similar phenomenon from the US, where between April and June 2021, as COVID-19 vaccination rates continued to increase, almost eight million workers voluntarily quit their jobs.
According to the Office for National Statistics, 791,000 British workers moved jobs during the same period, equating to 2.6% of the UK’s workforce. This is the highest total since March 2019 and before that, the highest for a decade.
In addition, in the UK, the past quarter saw nearly 1.2m vacant jobs, another record number. Companies are struggling to fill roles amid what appears to be an employee driven market where workers, in extremely high demand, are seeking out jobs with better pay or opportunities. As a consequence, many companies have been left understaffed. Changes in workers’ interests or their appetite for work have combined with the departure of thousands of the country’s EU citizens after Brexit, which has also increased labour shortages in certain occupations.
In addition, the Skills Network’s recent Skills Gap Trend report, which analysed 1.5m jobs has revealed that finance, auditing and accounting are the most in-demand hard skills in the country, while communications, management and customer service top the list for in-demand soft skills.
With such a large staff turnover predicted, along with high numbers of skills gaps, businesses are expected to face the effects of losing employees due to lack of training, upskilling and low pay.
In the meantime, Business Skills Solutions (BSS), part of Newham College has seen an increase in learners signed up to fully funded courses related to pre-employment skills across a range of sectors, highlighting the significant increase of adults capitalising on free training to upskill or acquire new skill sets completely, clearly demonstrating an appetite for self-improvement leading to the potential for new or different employment opportunities.
BSS is keen to engage with employers who are, or who may be, suffering as part of the fallout from The Great Resignation in terms of staff or skills shortages and has been addressing the dual demand for sector based pre-employment training linked to full-time jobs and apprenticeships, to provide unemployed and job-seeking people with the knowledge and skills to help them to secure new or changed employment, along with working with employers to prepare potential new talent with much-needed soft skills to help them through application and interview processes.
The team have already set up and run several Sector Based Work Academy (SWAP) programmes, in conjunction with Jobcentre Plus, to deliver employability and sector specific skills to groups of candidates in order to mentor them to interview stage. A recent Customer Service programme saw a 70% employment uptake rate among candidates put forward for a guaranteed interview.
Matt Harvey, BSS Director for Business Development, said:
“We’re all about providing benefits to companies in having not just pre-screened but employment-ready candidates, along with providing some job-specific qualifications. Feedback from one of our employer focus groups suggested that many candidates were missing vital soft skills in the form of communication, time keeping, working as part of a team, etc. so we’ve incorporated a lot of those attitudinal aspects into our employability courses.
“Getting involved in recruiting for new talent, particularly apprentices, is not easy. Finding out about what apprenticeship training is available, the costs and commitments involved, what financial incentives and support is on offer and setting up a recruitment process in the light of agency costs makes it a difficult area for many businesses to get involved in.”
BSS provides its services to companies looking to recruit staff, including apprentices, totally free of charge, including all of the promotion, talent acquisition and pre-employment screening and training to ensure candidates are job-ready before interview, providing much-needed support services without the cost of using a recruitment organisation.
BSS was created by Newham College in order to work with both employers and individuals to be a unique and responsive department within the college to provide bespoke learning opportunities to young people and adults to meet the needs of both businesses and those seeking work.
To facilitate the referral and partnership working process, a dedicated Partnership Engagement and Development Manager, Andy Marriott, works in close collaboration with over 1,000 organisations in and around London to promote a range of programmes and to coordinate the recruitment and enrolment of candidates.
“We are looking to engage with employers who are looking to bring numbers of new staff on board, whether they’ve been affected by Brexit, COVID, or The Great Resignation,”
said Andy.
“We can provide support for businesses who are in need of new staff and who would benefit from our pre-employment training to candidates to help them be prepared for interviews. All we require of an employer is a promise to interview the candidates, and to appoint those most suited to their role and their organisation.”
The guaranteed interview scheme as been a major success in helping many recently, as well as long-term, unemployed candidates who may not have sat in front of a prospective employer for a long time, giving them the opportunity of an interview for a role along with feedback for those who are unsuccessful, with pointers on how to improve their prospects.
BSS is keen to explore opportunities to work with London employers to meet local demand for jobs and to help to generate and train current and future supplies of talent and is planning a series of job and careers fairs for the Spring to bring employing organisations in touch with potential employees, and to discuss the range of support that they can offer.
Matt Harvey added:
“We would love to hear from employers who are planning new recruitment initiatives, or are looking to get involved in apprenticeships for the first time or considering increasing their current apprenticeship cohort. Our job and careers fairs will help us to network, find out their needs and to offer real support in helping them to find the next generation of local and diverse talent.”
Companies interested in accessing the free range of recruitment support available from Business Skills Solutions, particularly in relation to apprenticeship or pre-employment training for new staff, can contact the team at bssenquiries@newham.ac.uk quoting All Things Business in the subject.