education

The skills debate is changing, but you’re still doing the same

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I’m fascinated by the changing employment market. I’m fascinated by education. And I’m absolutely fascinated by the crossover between the two. Any HR professional worth their salt (and there are more than you’d imagine) should be intrigued, concerned and curious about the changing landscape of skills and education.

Let me put it simply,

  • If you’re a carpenter, you need to know that you’re going to get enough good quality wood.
  • If you’re a butcher, you want to know where your meat is coming from.
  • If you make wine, you care about the grapes.

Do we have a skills shortage, a skills deluge or a skill mix problem?

Well, probably a bit of all three.

I was taking part in an interview last week about over skilled and under utilised employees. I won’t take you through the whole thing, you have better things to do with your lives. But a couple of comments stuck in mind.

At the end the interviewer said to me, “thank you, it is great to hear from a company that recognised the presence of a skills mismatch. Most of the companies we’ve spoken to said they haven’t witnessed it.”

Really? My response was, “ask their employees what they think”.

The second was an observation that had been stuck in my brain for a while. When I talk to my colleagues in Germany, a large proportion of the HR people have a PhD. I can’t think of a single one in the UK. Clearly they are over skilled and over qualified. Or not?

I’m not sure there is any point to this. I’m not sure I have a great reveal to make or any insight to give, just more questions.

At a time when we are talking about a skills shortage.

Do we actually have more than we think? Is the labour market broken? Has immigration, the democratisation of tertiary education and the mobility of labour changed the rules of the game?

And are we all struggling to catch up?

Open up your door

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If I promise not to rant, will you bear with me a minute? Because I need to get serious, just for a while.

Back in 1992 I left my state school. I didn’t come from a particularly privileged family, but by no means was I disadvantaged. My dad was a civil servant and my mum was a lecturer at the local FE college. I didn’t get particularly good A-levels, in fact they were poor….the letters, C, D and E were involved. More than once.

As a result, I didn’t get in to any of my first choice universities. I went in to clearing and eventually got a place at the University of Sunderland (Polytechnic) and went there to study Psychology. I graduated in 1995.

What is he talking about? I can hear you say it. Where is he going?

But, if I told you…..you might not keep reading. And you need to read on.

1995 wasn’t a great time to be graduating, jobs weren’t abundant, businesses were on their knees. I applied for graduate schemes but I didn’t have the university, the school or the polish to pull it off. I was directionless.

Not being able to get a job, someone suggested I study for the IPM (Institute of Personnel Management). Given I had nothing else to do, I did. Working nights to fund the fees and moving back in with my parents with my newly married wife. It wasn’t great. But it wasn’t horrific.

Even then, with my shiny postgraduate, I still couldn’t get a job. I have hundreds, HUNDREDS of rejection letters in a file at home. Everything asked for experience, but no-one wanted to give you experience. It was a classic Catch 22.

Then something special happened to me. I applied for a job at a crappy old hospital in a crappy part of the world. But, I didn’t know it then, there was someone willing to take a chance. The interview was a blur, but I remember cracking a joke about my wedding being in French and unsuspectingly marrying the wrong woman…..it wasn’t my greatest joke.

I left and walked back to the bus that would take me to the train, that would take me to the other train, that would take me to the ferry, that would eventually take me home.

And then I heard a voice behind me. It was a guy called Colin Moore. And Colin offered me a job. A chance. An opportunity.

That moment took place nearly 17 years ago.

The work wasn’t brilliant, the job wasn’t amazing, the location was frankly shite. I spent Sunday to Friday in a bedsit, before travelling for four hours back home for Friday and Saturday nights. But it was a chance. It was an opportunity. It was proper experience and it gave me a chance to start my career.

Nearly two decades later, I’m not doing too badly. I’m doing ok. I think I’ve grown a bit, I’ve learnt a bit. But it was all down to that one person that was willing to take a punt on a snotty nosed idiot with no experience.

And that’s why I’m so proud today to be supporting the launch of the Open Doors Campaign and particularly through the Talent Tour taking place. I don’t care what your politics are, the issue of social mobility and talent management are intrinsically linked. And Open Doors is trying to change the way that we, in business, do things to open up opportunities for young people regardless of their backgrounds.

I’m proud that my company was an early signatory to the Business Compact on Social Mobility. I’m proud of the work that my team do to increase transparency of opportunity.

If you work in HR or you are a business owner, no matter how big, no matter how small, I’d urge you to get involved. If you are on social media I would BEG you, today to publicise the campaign by following @dpmoffice & @JamesCaan or the hashtag #MissionOpeningDoors. And if you have a personal story to share about your own career break then please use the hashtag #MyBigBreak.

This is an opportunity for the HR community online to show their power, their influence and to raise awareness of an issue that many of us have debated time and time again. So go tweet, go Retweet, put political boundaries aside for today and be the people that really make change happen.

Thank you. This means so much to me, both personally and professionally. Maybe together we can really make a difference.

Bacc-ward thinking

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Yesterday’s announcement about the proposed new English Baccalaureate Certificate (EBaccs) fell with a thud of doom across my heart. The familiar reprise of raising standards, ringing in my ears.  I’ve written about education before and I’ll keep doing so. For those of us in the world of work need to pay attention to the world of education with a keen eye. This is our supply chain and we should be as interested and as vocal about it as we can be about any other aspect of work.

The proposed replacement of the often criticised GCSE exams has been long coming, but where there was an opportunity to really consider reform of the pre 16 education system, instead we have remained focussed on an outdated and depressingly archaic view of performance and attainment firmly shifting the dial from education to teaching.

Those that complain that the current system is about monkeys being taught tricks have merely changed the tricks.

Two years ago I was visiting prospective secondary schools with my son. In one, highly regarded, rather grand establishment we were treated to the Headmaster strutting from side to side on the stage telling us how they intended to “turn your young men into leaders” and the value they placed on “academic attainment”. In another the Headmaster explained that they “don’t place targets on the grades they expect to get and position in league tables, but instead on ensuring that every child fulfils their potential”.

In this, we highlight the difference the former is teaching, the latter is educating. And as UK plc we need to be educating our children, not teaching them to tick boxes.

In the same way that you don’t drive a performance culture by changing the competency rating system, you don’t drive educational performance by changing the exam system. Much is broken within our education system, teachers and head teachers are demoralised to the point that recruiting head teachers is becoming harder and harder and existing heads are being asked to take on more than one school. OFSTED is once again positioning itself as the Pythonesque Spanish Inquisition and the funding of individual schools is becoming increasingly complex and yet fragile in equal measure.

Educational reform should be focussed on ensuring that EVERY child fulfils their potential, that there is an educational offering that is engaging and exciting whatever your aptitude and interest. Educational reform should be focussed on ensuring that the very best talents are drawn into the profession and that we are entrusting the future success of our children and of the country as a whole with the most able people. Educational reform should be focussed education, on developing independent learners, not on teaching the performance of tricks – however hard those tricks are.

The EBacc is not the future for progressive education in the UK. The EBacc is not new thinking, is not radical, nor – in the long run – will it be effective in raising educational standards in comparison to other countries. A radical rethink would have seen the consideration of aptitude and interest assessments at say 14 and formal exams only at 18 (the end of compulsory education), a focus on both tailored vocational and academic learning, on teachers terms and conditions and on the structure of educational establishments.

With a resonance of depressing familiarity to the HR profession, these proposals try to change the culture and performance by tinkering with the shiny controllables at the end of the process, not the really hard, thorny issues that sit in the slightly grey opaque middle but that really make a difference. We’ve missed the latest opportunity to really rethink education and we will be poorer as a country and as individual businesses for it.

PS. if you want to know, my son goes to the second school. And the thing the Headmaster went on to explain, was that their focus on individual learning and performance was the reason that they were top of the exam tables for the county…..well ahead of the other school.

Raw belief, raw talent

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Bloggers have a habit of seeing something in life and trying to draw parallels with the world of work, or whatever topic they choose to blog about. I know, I’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt, bought the t-shirt company. I’m going to try to avoid that. But being half cut on Night Nurse and paracetamol, who knows….anything could happen.

Last year, after final school reports, I was walking with my daughter in the Ardeche. She had done really well that year, but maths remained an issue for her. Half confidence, half ability. She struggled to perform to the level of her natural intellectual ability. We were hiking a particularly arduous 12 mile route and to keep her mind off the hills, we talked about school and subjects and basically anything to prevent the “are we there yet” syndrome kicking in.

When we got to maths, she was, as usual, self-effacing, honest and humble. “I just don’t understand it” she told me.  “You can understand anything”, I replied rather tritely. “I bet by this time next year, if you really want to, you can be on the top table”. She looked at me and said, “I can’t. I’m not good enough”.

“I can’t do it for you” I replied, “but if you really want it, if you think you can, if you tried hard and if I help you, you will.”

The conversation continued and fast forward 7 months and I am sat in the classroom with her teacher. We start talking about maths and she tells me how she has seen an incredible improvement in my daughter. From being in the bottom group, she is now in the second to top. She explains that she is out performing her ability, because of her desire to learn, to do well and to succeed. “It is truly incredible” she tells me.

So what happened? Well, some of it is about the right moment. Some of it is about the right support. Some of it is about maturity. But as my daughter said to me this evening, “well we said that was what was going to happen”. Some of it was about having a vision of success and the sense of belief that comes from other people sharing that vision.  There was no intellectual or physical reason why she could not achieve this, but there was a psychological block.

Would I have spent the same amount of time and effort with one of my team? With an employee? Probably not and this is a salutary lesson that I need to reflect on a little more. If we are set on getting people to perform to their potential, sometimes that goes beyond training, sometimes it goes beyond structures and job profiles. And it definitely goes beyond the nonsense that is talked about the war for talent, talent communities, talent pipelining etc. etc.

Most of the time, the raw talent is sat just in front of you. With a little bit of personal investment, a bit of belief and, of course, with the right support and instruction. Well, most things are possible. You just need to approach it with the passion and dedication that you would with someone you love.

Time consuming? Yes. A waste of time? No.

And I’ll leave the last word to my daughter, “Well, I’m pleased…….but I’m not on the top table yet. But I have another four months to go…..and I will be there. Because I can.”

UPDATE: The results are in and she has gained four levels this year, from being one behind target to three above. Now that, my friends, is DATA.