If you want to win the war for talent and continue to grow your business, it’s inevitable that you need to invest in your colleagues’ professional and personal development to maintain a high level of job satisfaction. Without this investment, many employers will continue to struggle with building highly skilled teams and retaining their existing workforce.
With skills in data and technology in such high demand, professionals are looking elsewhere for opportunities if they are not satisfied with their workplace. At Kaplan, we can help you conquer those fears of high turnover in your workplace. Let’s take a closer look.
Retainment
Employers across the UK are struggling to retain their workforce. Although there are plenty of reasons behind high turnover, a common concern is that there is a lack of career progression across many industries.
A common phrase comes to mind:
“Find a job you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”
On average, roughly one third of our lives will be spent at work. So, it’s easy to understand why job satisfaction is important. However, this just isn’t enough anymore, especially during a global economic crisis.
In addition to this, how many of us would be happy working at the same level in a workplace for the rest of our lives? Particularly in lower-paid or lower-skilled roles. But it is possible to have the best of both worlds: your colleagues can enjoy their careers while taking advantage of opportunities to progress financially and professionally, and it all comes down to the decision-makers.
Boost success: six ways that apprenticeships can help you achieve your business goals
Taking a closer look into the statistics, LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends 2020 report found that employees stick around 41% longer at companies that regularly hire from within. From an employer’s perspective, replacing existing employees can range from 16% to 213% of the employee’s salary due to costs involving recruitment, training and salary.
A lack of training opportunities leads to a lack of career progression. In today’s ever-evolving world of technology and data skills, work experience can’t always do the job. Therefore, employers start to seek external candidates to fill in any skills gaps. But, as the statistics show, this can lead to lower job satisfaction from existing employees and increased hiring costs.
We’re not saying that hiring new personalities is all negative. In fact, younger generations like Gen Z offer plenty to the workplace which may have been rarely seen in the past. However, it is not economically or logistically viable to only hire new people. When you have hardworking people in your team, why wouldn’t you want to encourage them to grow and prosper? It’s all about finding the right balance.
War for talent
Data and technology skills are needed in almost every industry, and yet there is a clear lack of skilled professionals. For example, the UK Government estimated that the potential supply of data scientists from universities is unlikely to exceed 10,000 a year. However, there are around 215,000 roles looking for hard data skills that need to be filled.
With this in mind, the demand is so high that it is very difficult to find the people with the correct skills that your organisation needs. Even if you wanted to hire new staff, it’s likely that they are going to require training to boost their skills. If you choose to compete with other businesses to get those in-demand skilled professionals, you’ll need to focus on ensuring that your organisation stands out from the crowd. However, upskilling the workforce will put you on a whole new playing field. This eliminates the competition and helps you to reach the goal of boosting your workplace while making your business the place where skilled professionals want to work.
Tackling the stereotypes
A simple yet effective solution to win the war for talent, and make your business a desirable place to work, is our data and technology apprenticeship programmes. The word ‘apprenticeship’ holds many stereotypes. Many people still believe that they are limited and are not suitable for people who are academically gifted. But these stereotypes couldn’t be further from the truth.
Encouraging your workplace to partake in a data and technology apprenticeship can give you the opportunity to both upskill existing staff, and hire new staff who are excited to work for an employer that cares about their personal and professional growth.
To help you understand a little bit more about why apprenticeships may just be the perfect business decision for you, here are some facts about our data and technology apprenticeships.
Apprenticeships are not limited. It is often overlooked how many transferable, soft and hard skills an apprentice gains from their training. For example, apprentices can gain knowledge in highly desired software and programming languages such as Python, SQL, or Excel, which can ultimately translate into any job across the industry.
Apprenticeships encourage diversity. Options such as university can be very expensive with exceptionally high admission rates. This can reduce opportunities for those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds or have experienced a lack in quality of education. Apprenticeships come with varied entry levels, so your business can take advantage of talent who may have previously gotten lost in the system.
Apprenticeships are not practical only. Not only will an apprenticeship provide the opportunities to apply their skills directly to the workplace, the knowledge is also taught by experts in the field to ensure that your workforce can thrive in their positions and you can reach your business goals.
Apprenticeships boost retention rates, employee satisfaction and loyalty. If you are investing in your workforce, they will acknowledge that and appreciate the growth that your business can provide them. Therefore, an apprenticeship can significantly boost overall job satisfaction and loyalty to the workplace, making your business a strong leader in the war for talent.
There is plenty of support available. From coaches to tutors, both the apprentice and employer will receive regular support throughout the whole apprenticeship process and journey. As an employer, you won’t be left alone to support your workplace as the training provider can take a lot of that pressure away from you.
Boost your business
We are passionate about the benefits of an apprenticeship for both the apprentice and the employer. There are many opportunities for your business to grow, you just need to know where to look.
For more information, take a look at our Data and Technology apprenticeship programmes, or contact the team who will be happy to help with any concerns you may have.
Thank you to the team at Kaplan for your insight. You can meet them by attending a financeSHOWCASE event near you.
