Opportunity to capitalise on enthusiasm for farming and growing

In fact, recent labour market information (LMI) in Lancashire, where I live, showed employers across a range of sectors were struggling to recruit staff with level 3 to level 6 skills, the types of roles like technicians, engineers and digital specialists.

This LMI was presented during the Lancashire STEM symposium, organised by Lancashire Careers Hub and held at Blackpool Zoo. 

The event invited teachers, careers advisors and leaders across Lancashire to meet employers and representatives of industry. Together, we set about tackling some of the difficulties businesses in our county were seeing in the recruitment space, while also helping careers advisors get an insight into the opportunities are that are right on their doorstep.

And it was really interesting hearing from a number of the other employers about how they are struggling with these issues around labour and skills, how their facing up to an aging workforce and how the skills their businesses need are rapidly changing as technology evolves.

Listening to these speakers, I was really struck by how these issues they're describing were all so true of farming and growing today. It was really fascinating.

 

Farming and growing can hold its place among other high-tech industries

I was stood alongside representatives of Westinghouse Nuclear, the National Cyber Security Centre, Morecambe Offshore Wind and advanced manufacturing businesses like Leyland Trucks. All of these really high-tech, exciting industries and businesses.

And I was hearing many of the same things that farmers and growers had told us about; how they've been struggling to find people with the right skills to fill their businesses’ needs.

Yet, despite many of us describing similar recruitment and skills issues, I was also really struck by the compelling stories and attractive routes into careers these other industries were showcasing.

Westinghouse Nuclear and Leyland Trucks both spoke at length about the apprenticeship programmes they offer and how heavily oversubscribed they are. 

As large employers, with several hundred staff each, both were rightly proud of how many apprentices they’re employing each year. More importantly however, they both had great stories to tell about the success of these programmes over a longer course of time.

Because while they employed some 20 to 30 new apprentices each year, they both found that most of these apprentices chose to stay with them once they completed their programmes.

In fact, both Leyland Trucks and Westinghouse Nuclear explained how up to 30% of their workforce were former apprentices, many of which had started their careers in their businesses and developed their roles with them.

 

Clearly, they've got a story to tell about how people can start a career with them, develop new skills, progress their role, move up through the ranks and change into some other roles.

In fact, a former Westinghouse Nuclear Managing Director, Mick Gornall, started as an apprentice in the business, too. That's incredible stories to be able to tell.

It's never been more important to show the journeys that are possible

Now obviously, smaller farms and growing businesses might not be able to offer that full, complete story about entering the route as an apprentice and moving all the way through the ranks until you're the leader of an 800-person business. But the principle still remains.

It's really important to have visible routes to get into an industry and a guide as to how you can develop your career, whether that's in the same business or elsewhere in the same sector.

Another point of enthusiasm that was shared across all the careers leads and the teachers at the event was how important work experience and even virtual work experience programmes were for their students.

They have a full curriculum to deliver across the science, technology, English and maths subjects. And some of the key pain points they'd seen was about how they can make the lessons and the elements of those curriculums feel more real to their students.

So being able to present our Careers in the Science Curriculum work – a project where TIAH’s Engagement Manager Ruthie Peterson mapped areas of the National Curriculum to real work tasks in farming and growing – was a real joy as there was so much enthusiasm for this resource.

I repeatedly heard how valuable this work was in helping teachers prepare more engaging lessons. Some couldn’t believe the depth of the work – the amount of fun, engaging resources we’re providing teachers to make their lessons pop, while others wondered why more industries hadn’t done this work, too.

Similarly, there was a lot of enthusiasm for experiences for students, and I genuinely feel this is one area where farming and growing has a real advantage over other industries.

 

Whether it’s farm visits, like Open Farm Sunday or on-farm education – as offered by the Lancashire Farm Education Centre and other businesses, or TIAH’s own Virtual Work Experience and Shadowing developments, our industry is one that is blessed to be able to make learning come to life.

Work experience placements can be a fantastic route into the industry for many, and we’d encourage all farmers and growers to have a look at our Work Experience Toolkit – which has been designed to help them understand everything involved in giving young people their first taste of work in a farming or growing environment.

Apprenticeships are critical to building the talent pipeline

Because the evidence is the industries and businesses who offer these experiences and routes into careers really are the ones who start to build a pipeline of talent, increasing demand for roles in their industry by bringing people in and developing them as they progress through their careers.

It's no coincidence that Leyland Trucks and Westinghouse Nuclear have thousands of applicants for tens of apprenticeship places each year.

Clearly, they've built a programme which delivers a story people can really relate to.

And really, I look forward to doing more to help farming and growing do exactly that as an industry rather than just as individual businesses.