Engineering and Manufacturing businesses are finding it harder than ever to recruit and retain staff, and plug internal skills gaps. Change to trends in the labour market require a change in your approach to hiring and staff development.
Plugging skills gaps doesn't always mean just placing staff on courses and hoping for the best. There are a number of ways you can retain existing skilled staff; making changes to the working environment, improving your company culture, reviewing pay regularly, all these amendments positively contribute to employee satisfaction.
Below, we have listed 5 ways that you could reduce skills gaps within your business this year:
#1 - Recruit an Apprentice
Recruiting apprentices are probably the best way to plug skills gaps within the business, and with all the funding streams available, along with the naturally lower rates of pay, they are in the majority of cases the most cost effective too.
Yes, they will need a mentor within the business to show them the ropes, and yes for smaller businesses this may initially reduce productivity and increase your lead times, however if mentored properly in the workplace, along with the training they receive by their provider, you should start to see the benefits in a couple of months.
#2 - Upskill your Team
According to a study carried out by LinkedIn Learning, 94% of employee's would stay at their company longer if they invested in their career development. Your business is a product of its people, if they don’t progress then you can’t expect your business to either.
"94% of Employee's would stay at their company longer if they invested in their career development, " – LinkedIn Learning Study
There is a lot of funding available to upskill existing workforces, including; Adult Education Budget, European Social Fund, Apprenticeship Levy and Non-Levy and more.
We can support engineering and manufacturing businesses with funded part-time NVQ's and bespoke commercial courses in Welding, Fabrication, Mechatronics, Maintenance, Lean 6 Sigma, Quality Assurance, FLT training and more, let us know your training requirements by clicking here and we will see how we can help.
Recruit - Retrain - Reward - Retain!
#3 - Hire a Trainee
Hiring a Trainee is often an overlooked approach when it comes to recruiting skilled staff in Manufacturing and Engineering.
Yes, Trainees aren’t expert’s and they won’t reduce lead times or be trusted to work on projects alone at the beginning, but with existing basic skills, they can be used as the foundations to build upon and also be moulded into your business' ways of working.
For example, Trainee’s we work with at Morestarts undergo 6 weeks of Welding and Fabrication training at Qualitrain Engineering Academy and have achieved a Level 2 NVQ, so they might not hit the ground running once employed, but they’ll certainly hit the ground walking, and initially that’s the most important part of progression. With further mentorship you should be able to have trainee's up to speed and reliably completing jobs within months.
Every 6 weeks, we have around 12 completer's who are looking for trainee welding jobs in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. If like the other local companies who go on to hire trainees, you would like to benefit from taking one on, let us know here.
#4 - Increase Wages
Okay, this isn’t an affordable option for a lot of companies, however it is no secret that Manufacturing businesses are losing staff to the other companies up the road who are paying 50 pence more an hour.
You must ask yourself, is it really worth not taking action? If your company can afford to increase its pay rate, don’t wait around for it to be too late. Most people who want more money don’t like asking for a pay rise, they tend to just look for a higher paying job.
If money is the only driving factor that has prompted their search, then become the higher paying employer they are looking for and you won’t lose them, therefore you wont lose the skills, and won’t need to waste time and money replacing them.
You will also attract better talent for future vacancies by standing out on job adverts, in what is already a highly competitive, candidate driven market.
#5 - Outsource Recruitment
Of course a recruitment business is going to say that, duhh! But seriously, to avoid disappointment and to also save the time, effort and hidden costs of DIY recruitment, you should leave it to a professional recruiter, and here's why...
According to a research carried out by the REC, a bad hire could cost your business up to 3x the salary of the role you are trying to fill, that is why it is so important to have an experienced professional carry out thorough pre-screening checks.
"Bad hire's could cost your business up to 3x the salary of the position" – Recruitment and Employment Confederation
If you have a recruiter within the business then great! However, if you don't and are a smaller team, its probably likely that you don't have the time, knowledge or resources to post competitive job adverts that stand out from the crowd and really promote all the great things about your business. Never mind having the time to sift applications, engage with all candidates and arrange/rearrange interviews, therefore its best you pay a professional to alleviate the risk of disappointment.
In a lot of cases, recruitment companies usually have an existing portfolio of suitable, skilled candidates who are in the process of looking for a new employer, which speeds up the recruitment process as there may not be a need to advertise. We have what's called a 'Candidate Pool' that you can view here, containing pre-screened Welding and Fabrication Candidates in Nottingham and Derby that are looking for a new employer.
Finally, You should always do you research on recruitment companies too, make sure they specialise in the industry you work in and have filled roles with similar companies to yours. The recruiters that only work on positions like yours will genuinely understand your requirements and have better access to the most suitable candidates on LinkedIn and other social media channels.
Plug Skills Gaps with Morestarts
As mentioned above, we are a recruitment and training solutions business specialising in the Engineering sector. If you would like to arrange a quick call with us to discuss the many ways we can support your business in plugging skills gaps, please complete our "Request a Call Back Form" on our contact page here
We hope this blog post has been useful to you and has offered some insight in to the ways you can increase productivity and reduce lead times within your business this year.
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