Are you struggling to find new Specialist Staff?
There are many organisations who, despite their best efforts, are struggling to find the right new recruits to fill their vacancies. They can advertise on every job board, in the press, on social media and elsewhere, hoping they’ll find those people with the right experience to come in and hit the ground running but to no avail.
Some employers will have to accept that despite their best efforts, they will continue to struggle. This isn’t necessarily any fault of the organisation in question, there are just multiple skills gaps across UK industries at the moment that have been left as a result of a combination of factors, including the Covid pandemic and European citizens returning to mainland Europe after Brexit and taking their skills with them.
Now, gaps are proving difficult for organisations to fill, and the options for doing so are relatively limited. This situation also places a premium on retaining current workers, as losing them to competitors or career changes will mean even more skills shortages within the company.
Growing Your Talent
Many employers look for staff with experience in a specialist field, i.e. they need to have worked in a similar job or industry for a specified period before being considered for the job. This isn’t necessarily about written qualifications but about real work experience.
In defining this as part of the criteria for success, employers must consider the following thoughts:
- Would people with that specific experience want a career move into a job which might offer them nothing additional to their current employer? What have you got to offer to entice them? This doesn’t necessarily have to be financial, it can be professional development opportunities or more flexible working conditions such as hybrid or fully remote working, which is more in demand than ever.
- Would candidates with the right experience be looking for a move to the competition (i.e. you) when they are hoping for the promotion they’ve been promised in their current job if they stay for so long? It can be hard to entice people away from an employer if they feel that career advancement is imminent. Is there an equivalent position that you can offer them within your own company?
- Is it likely that candidates are being put off applying for your positions just because you are being so strict about qualifying criteria? Can you relax some of the qualifying criteria and remove some of the extra requirements that are not needed?
- Can you train new starts who don’t have the right experience and give them the knowledge they need to succeed in the role? Is experience really a deal breaker, or can you help to train someone who has the skills but currently lacks the experience so they can do the role successfully?
This latter option is the most important and the one to focus on if this has been a recurring problem for you. Growing and developing your own talent brings so many benefits to employers, not least:
- You can open the recruitment process up to such a wide range of people that you could access a whole new and varied talent pool and have the pleasure of choosing those with real potential.
- By investing time and effort into training new staff in a specialism, you will increase their loyalty to your organisation, meaning attrition rates should be low.
- You get to decide precisely how they will be trained in their new skill, meaning there will be no confusion regarding process and policy from their previous employer(s).
Apprenticeship Schemes
Apprenticeship schemes are ideal ways of growing your own talent. But, if you are looking for solid generalist skills and experience (without specialist experience), then you can devise a development scheme which works for you. However you badge it, a scheme which allows you to find, train and retain staff will bring long-term benefits to you, your workforce and your clients. Schemes can include factors such as:
- Financial reward is linked to clear development objectives until they are suitable to go it alone and take on the job role unsupervised.
- Individual coaching and mentoring. This allows for more senior colleagues to work closely with the apprentice and aid in their development. They can take a hands-on role in showing the apprentice some of the skills that they will need to succeed in the working environment and give them appropriate encouragement to aid them in their progression.
- Learning on-the-job. This is one of the best ways to learn any job role as instead of just concentrating on theory-based learning, the apprentice is actually participating in the day-to-day work of the organisation and doing what they can to contribute toward the everyday successes and achievements of the whole.
- Internal qualification programmes. These allow the apprentice to learn the appropriate skills they will need in the workplace role and will equip them with the knowledge to succeed in their apprenticeship.
- Exposure to several roles within the organisation to find the best fit. This gives them a chance to have a brilliant overview of how the various roles within the organisation fit together and how each role relates to the others. It can be interesting to take on different roles at a company and rotate around different parts of the organisation. It allows a well-rounded idea of how their actions make a difference.
For us, it’s a win-win situation. However, employers must understand this strategy's tangible benefits and accept that it could be time for a new and innovative approach to finding and retaining talented staff.
Allowing apprentices to develop and flourish at your company will mean that you have a steady flow of new talented people who will be loyal to you because they will have spent years at the company before their training is complete and will feel like they have a home there.
One of the worries businesses have about committing to apprenticeships is that they will develop the apprentice and then leave to work for someone else, but it rarely happens like that.
