Memorandum 76
Submission from EPC Global
Re: How easy is it to recruit the engineering
staff you need?
We're an engineering staffing company and we
work with several of the world's largest engineering employers,
helping them to recruit into thousands of roles here and abroad,
mostly at the mid to senior end of the spectrum. We'd like to
focus on these levels because it will be a while before any welcome
initiatives to encourage recruits to the industry have an effect.
Engineering employers face a number of challenges
recruiting at this level, primarily a genuine shortage of talent
in several fields thanks to an ageing workforce and/or high demand.
The best evidence is the length of time that roles can go unfilled
and the rates that some senior professionals can now command.
In the UK some of the three most affected fields are power, oil
and gas and rail.
In summary we believe that (a) employers can't
only blame talent shortages for their woes and (b) that the Government
should recognise that employers can perhaps fill most vacancies
from a domestic/EU talent pool (eventually) but it will cost them
dearly to do so. In detail:
We'd like to make four recommendations to employers:
1. Be more strategic and stop being locally-minded
regarding recruitment: Some forward thinking employers have left
behind the days of "just in time" recruitment using
local recruiters. They recognise that good people are essential
to project delivery so plan much further ahead, with staffing
as a board level issue. Still others in what remains a broadly
conservative industry are opening their minds to using talent
from overseas, once they are convinced of the validity of such
recruits' qualifications.
2. Commit to retraining or employing re-trained
engineers. Talent from declining industries can be retrained for
up and coming ones in certain areas but many employers aren't
keen on the idea.
3. Improve recruitment processes. Some engineering
employers could speed up the whole selection process to match
practices in other industries, or risk talent going to the competition.
4. On the HR side, improve retention measures.
Many employers could do a lot in this area and minimise the resource-heavy
need to recruit in the first place.
We'd like to make three recommendations to the
authorities:
1. Focus your efforts on getting women into engineering.
The profession could be more "female friendly" and career
paths in engineering need to be explained at an early age. We're
only fishing from half the pool of potential engineers if we don't.
2. The Migration Advisory Committee should broaden
the shortage professions list to include engineers from other
fields. Employers aren't only concerned about the availability
of talent per se but also its cost. Salaries in some fields have
surged thanks to skills shortages and make up a much higher proportion
of outgoings. Of course, high salaries should help encourage British
youngsters into engineering but employers can't either twiddle
their thumbs and wait for this (and paradoxically a drop in salaries
from adequate supply) to happen or cease trading because recruitment
has become prohibitively expensive.
3. Don't stop there: Make the UK more attractive
as a destination to work for engineers-we surveyed 1,700 engineers
from around the world earlier this year and the UK scored below
many of our key competitor countries for quality of life.
November 2008
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