e-skills NTO promotes work experience as a part of campaign to address IT skills shortage
e-skills NTO, The National Training Organisation for the IT skills, has announced that despite the massive IT skills shortage facing Britain there is still resistance amongst IT employers to invest in work placements. The research indicates that work placements could form a vital part of addressing the skills shortage in the IT sector, which is faced with recruiting one million new employees over next five years.
e-skills NTO is launching a campaign to encourage IT employers to extend work placement schemes and to work closely with educational establishments in doing so. The work placement initiative is part of e-skills NTO’s far-reaching campaign to address the IT skills shortage which is supported by Patricia Hewitt MP, Minister for e-commerce.
The research shows that only 55% of the organisations interviewed had implemented work placement schemes in 2000. Many of the companies interviewed felt that managing work placements would be too time consuming yet the reality is that a third of those companies not providing placements admitted that they could probably benefit from an individual on work placement. In addition, most placements were filled by school leavers or under/postgraduates (67%); relatively few placements were filled by mature candidates such as career changers (8%) or the unemployed (10%).
"The results of the survey show a real lack of awareness of the benefits that a work experience placement can offer and limited targeting beyond students to include mature people or life changers. The IT industry is suffocating from a shortage of skilled workers, work placements present a great opportunity to tackle this, providing an excellent recruitment ground for employers and are an ideal way to encourage people to try working in the IT industry who might not otherwise consider it," said Andrew Palmer, project manager, e-skills NTO.
e-skills NTO will start a programme of action to address the skills gap, looking at employer barriers to work placements and ways to increase employer interest in work experience schemes. Initial initiatives will include:
Employers who have provided work placements have seen a real benefit in doing so. Far from being a burden most have seen them as a useful recruiting group. With over 81% of those companies who offered work placements suggesting that it is likely they will made the recruit a full time employee.
Summary of e-skills NTO work placement findings:
The findings follow a survey of 300 organisations carried out by NOP earlier this year.
Happy to provide work placements to students
The survey found that while companies were happy to take on school/college students few were prepared to offer their placements to the unemployed and mature person. Only one in ten provided a placement for an unemployed person. Yet there is a real need for these organisations to recruit staff with three out of ten of the companies reporting vacancies in their product development, sales & marketing, IT customer services and IT operations function.
Turning away form work placements
Research showed that those companies not currently offering work placements perceived placements as time consuming for staff (35%) and that they would not be able to provide useful job tasks (16%).
On-the job training
Much of the training actually took place on the job (31%). Although larger organisations were almost twice as likely to provide external training to their work placement employees (14%) compared to 6% of organisations with 10-49 employees.
Recruiting for the future
Work placements were seen as a very good recruiting ground. With 81% of companies that provided work placements in 2000 suggesting that they were likely to make the recruit a full time member of staff.
Traditional links
It is fundamental that Universities, schools and colleges continue to forge relationships with employers. Organisations not currently providing work placements were far more likely to seek advice from other organisations and felt that building stronger links with colleges and universities would be a benefit (31%).
About e-skills NTO
As the National Training Organisation (NTO) for the Information Age, e-skills NTO is a not for profit membership organisation with responsibility for the whole IT remit. Its role is to represent the IT industry as the national body for the sector and to improve the IT user skills of the entire UK workforce while addressing the skills needs of employers of IT professionals across UK industry.
e-skills NTO works closely with industry, education and government partners to identify and address key issues in order to improve workforce competence and maximise business competitiveness, and one of its main responsibilities is to develop and oversee standards and qualifications for IT users and professionals at a national level.
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For more information please contact:
Nyarrin Scanlan / Hugh Mark
AxiCom
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Anne Cantelo
e-skills NTO