Understanding Skill Shortages Insights from the UK Employer Skills Survey and Its Implications

AC1.2 Identifies and assesses at least 2 factors that affect an organisations approach to attracting talent

Many approaches can be used by organisations to attract appropriate talent, they can broadly be understood as either internal or external forms of approaches.

Skill Shortage: Broadly speaking, skills shortages can be understood as the the shortage of workers who posses a certain set of skills and who are capable of doing certain kinds of works. In a report based on a survey by the The UK Employer Skills Survey (ESS), the problem of skill was evident as some organisations reported that there was a paucity of adequately skilled employees in their organisation. Conversely, organisations also feel that the talent in their organisation may be overqualified. Such disparity in skills may happen because of the lack of good pay or scarcity of opportunity. This is more so the case in big cities like London, where the cost of living and transportation is a bigger burden on the pay of an employee.

Research on the NHS has made it clear that they experience staff shortages, whereby 60% of the HR professionals in the NHS believe that a paucity of skills is making it difficult recruiting appropriately qualified doctors and nurses. Brexit has caused additional difficulties in retaining appropriately qualified individuals in the nation.

Economic Factors: During times of economic recession and financial strains, organisations will generally tend to not hire more people in order to expand their business. When the economy is strained, the company may have its choice of employees and

several individuals willing to fulfil a single role. However, when the economy is healthy and prosperous, employees may want to go to companies which offer better salaries and competitive advantages, as they will have options.

Competition among organisations: It is common knowledge that organisations compete with each other for human resources. The contingency plan for survival for any organisation is to save on costs and if they are not able to do that successfully, they go into recession. In the scenario where organisations can avoid recession, they’d have a choice of candidates for a particular position. In a different scenario, when a particular niche skill is needed and a candidate possesses, the organisations may have to compete for it as the candidate can apply for two or more positions at the same time.

AC1.1 Identifies and explains at least 3 organisation benefits of attracting and retaining a diverse workforce

In a particular workforce, diversity in employees is an important resource. Diversity includes recruiting and hiring individuals of different races, genders, abilities, ethnicities, sexual identities and other identities. Diversity in the work force increases the available variety of talent in an organisation and employees who are looking for jobs will also be more encouraged to apply for jobs where a diverse workforce exists. Flexibility and adaptability are two of the qualities which prosper in a diverse work place. From a socio-cultural perspective, people who belong to different gender, ethnicities and even age-groups deserves to get equal opportunities for employment. Another pertinent reason why diversity should be encouraged in the workplace is because diverse work force is better equipped to represent the diverse needs of the customers and it will positively impact the organisations’ functions and goods.

AC1.3 Describes some factors that affect an organisations approach to recruitment and selection

Some of the laws and legislations which affect organisations are consumer laws, discrimination laws, copyright laws, health and safety laws, employment laws, fraud laws, pyramid scheme laws, import and export laws and so on.

Some laws which affect business organisations are Equality Act (2010), Agency Workers Regulations (2010), Part -time workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations (2000), Data Protection Act (2018), Freedom of Information Act (2000), Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (1974), Disclosure and Barring Service and Right to Work (Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006).

The importance of ethics within an organisation are several; a good ethical corporate body is beneficial for improving the morale of the individuals working in that organisation and this could lead to more employee retention, loyalty to the organisation and productivity. Ethics in a workplace is understood as a set of rules which dictate the operations, decision-making and treatment of employees. The management needs to make sure that there are no discriminatory practices in the recruitment processes and ensure that interviews are taken in a unbiased manner.

AC2.2 Describes the benefits of at least 3 different recruitment methods.

Some of the most common forms of recruitment are interviewing, shortlisting and assessment, through which employees are selected and recruited. In assessment, a structured interview is a good way to understand the abilities of the candidate who is being interviewed and is an effective method if a large number of candidates are being interviewed at the same time. A structured questionnaire will also be easier for the candidates to answer. Interviews are a flexible and thorough way for the recruiter to understand the candidate and ask questions in the form of a conversation. Interviews are usually understood as a talk between two individuals and this methods allows interviewers to be flexible. The interview is a good method to understand the abilities of the candidate as it judges the verbal intelligence of the candidate and can elicit more response from candidates who may not be able to read and/or write.

To bridge the gap between interviewing and recruiting, shortlisting can be used. This method can be used to narrow down appropriate candidates from a large pool of applicants and make sure the suitable employee is not overlooked.

The Rolls Royce selection method has shown to have had good success in recruiting employees by giving equitable opportunities and select them based on merit. Assessment centres are widely regarded as a method of providing free and fair opportunities to all applicable candidates in the selection process. The Rolls Royce method a good method as it has high success rate in predicting employee success in a job and also nine times out of then, it picks the appropriate person for the job.

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