Skills Gap in SME – First, link skills and employment policy to regional strategy

According to Siemens UK and Northern Europe HR director Toby Peyton-Jones, for small businesses the skills crisis is “the elephant in the room”.

“They just haven’t got the bandwidth to get involved with this agenda,” he says. In his view, there are two approaches to making it easier for SMEs.

The first is by linking skills and employment policy to regional strategy and framing it as “a local activity”.

“Scotland is different to Liverpool, which is different to south-east London,” he adds. “We need to look at the resources a region has and develop something based on that. We need to take a regional approach, and the current devolution debate is timely.”

The second approach Peyton-Jones mentions is for big business to help the smaller businesses in its supply chains, something that is also advocated by BAE Systems MD Nigel Whitehead.

“I have the luxury of taking a long-term view, but a lot of SMEs will be worried about how they get through the week,” he says. “It’s incumbent on large organisations to create environments for suppliers to be able to think about the long term.”

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at HR Magazine – SMEs and the skills crisis.