Businesses offering rail transport services are facing an ‘impending crisis’ when it comes to finding staff with skills to meet increasing customer expectations and technology changes that are taking place within the sector, a new report claims.
According to the State of the Nation Passenger Transport 2012 research report released by sector skills council, People 1st, 42% of rail employers report that over half of their staff could benefit from additional training.
The highest levels of skills gaps are around the ‘ability to monitor and solve customer service problems, working across different teams, and the ability to use automated and hand tools’, the report says.
In an industry that directly contributes almost £8.2bn to the economy, the ‘financial impact of these skills shortages is significant’.
Simon Tarr, chief operating officer of People 1st, said that while there is a growing recognition that people skills are as important as technical capabilities, finding applicants with the right combination is proving difficult for many organisations.
“Employers tell us that while they are receiving a lot more applications for jobs, the quality is not necessarily rising because a lot of people just don’t have the skills they want or need.
“There is often a poor perception of the sector, which means that people with the right skills just don’t consider entering into a career in passenger transport.
“Whether it’s the idea that the sector is not customer-focused, that there are few career opportunities or chances for progression, or the legal requirements around employment, some industries are really struggling to find the right people. All of this needs to be addressed if we’re going to fill the skills gaps currently present.”
Simon said that making the sector more appealing to job seekers would help address the skills gaps, as would providing more training.
It is very interesting that this article has been published online on the same day as your item about the 50th anniversary of the opening of the British Rail Works Training School in Swindon.
Over the last few decades there has been an ongoing trend towards employers in all areas of business saving costs by reducing their training schemes, initially abdicating responsibility to government by complaining about the lack of skilled applicants and by inference a need for the state education system to do better. This was however mirrored by the apparent decline of technical colleges and their transformation into new universities of soft learning.
This is all part of the short termism of industry reducing costs by considering education as far removed from their core activities. There are of course some notable exceptions.
A free market view could be that companies get the applicants they deserve.