Employer Engagement - the way forward for skills.

“Employer engagement” is the phrase increasingly in use when referring to how to address the skills gaps and particularly those relating to STEM. There are quite a number of initiatives that have placed employers at the heart of this issue and process, and I applaud this. This doesn’t, however, absolve the Government of its responsibilities towards education, industrial strategy and providing the resources necessary to make this happen. Nevertheless, having employers working together on current and future skills needs will I hope produce some much needed coordination and consistency. This will be particularly important post the coming election.

I was at an event last week run by UKCES (UK Commission for Employment and Skills) entitled Collaboration for Growth. It mainly centred on the newly created Industrial Partnerships (IP) set up by businesses with support from Government to look at their skills shortages. There are eight such IPs: Aerospace, Automotive, Creative Industries, Digital Economy, Energy & Efficiency, Nuclear, Science, Tunnelling. Each of these has a collaborative programme to begin addressing their current and future skills needs. The UKCES is managing these IPs as part of the Employer Ownership Pilots and they will run through till March 2017 at least.

EDT is also engaged in an Employer Ownership Project – Industrial Cadets (IC). The great feature of IC is that it provides a framework to facilitate employer engagement with schools and young people, and thereby can be the vehicle for developing a local talent pipeline of informed and skilled young people. Many of the schemes that EDT offers can be used as part of any employer engagement programme, making it easier for employers to manage the processes of linking with schools on a regular and structured basis.

Whilst I remain passionate about EDT’s mission as a charity to encourage young people in to STEM careers, I increasingly see a major role for EDT to facilitate employers providing work related experiences leading to careers awareness and development of employability skills for the future local workforce.

A great example of this is the Engineering Education Scheme (EES) which celebrates its 30^th anniversary this year. At this time of year we are about to run the celebration and assessment days at which the teams of 17 year olds present their projects. The scheme has remained an enduring success and is as relevant today as when it was launched. It offers a wonderful set of real world work related experiences to those considering a STEM career either through an apprenticeship or university. Likewise it offers employers an opportunity to engage with bright and committed potential recruits, as well as getting an outstanding project tackled, and can be accredited at the Industrial Cadets Gold award level. More specifically is the impact that a programme such as EES has; more than 80% go on to STEM related careers, and most interesting is that 84% of the girls participating go on to STEM related careers.

Our aim remains to get more employers engaged with EES and similar schemes, and to support employers in their quest for the next generation of STEM skills.