59% of Brits are willing to retrain for work 

Research from the CV-Library has discovered that 59% of Brits have said that they would be willing to retrain in a new line of work.

Reasons for wanting to retrain:

• To make themselves more employable (51.8%)
• They can’t find a job (32.4%)
• They want better job security (32%)
• Wanting to do a meaningful job (30.3%)
• They want a role with a higher salary (29.1%)
• A desire to change industries (18.5%)

The impacts of COVID19 have hit some sectors harder than others. Professionals within those hard-hit sectors are losing jobs and there are no longer any jobs available in that line of work. They have no choice but to consider searching for different sectors for jobs. This will likely lead to them having to retrain to be able to adapt to a role in a new sector.

Professionals in sectors most likely to want to retrain:

• Charity (92.9%)
• Customer service (80.6%)
• Leisure/tourism (75%)
• Hospitality (73.9%)
• Manufacturing (69.4%)

The job market within the UK will be deeply impacted by the pandemic for a long time. Employers will need to become more open to hiring people who have previously worked in different sectors. Equally, professionals must be more open to opportunities outside of their current sector.

Retraining opportunities

To aid these people to find jobs in different sectors the government are offering help. Adults in England who don’t have an A-Level or equivalent qualification will be offered a free college course. This is to help boost their employment opportunities in the Post-Covid economy. Currently, only those up to the age of 23 can receive this, but it will soon be extended to all ages. The course they take must be deemed to be of value to an employer.

Additionally, the government launched a free online skills toolkit to help people train in digital and numeracy skills. This toolkit is being expanded to include 62 additional courses. These are all free to access, allowing those who wanted to retrain in certain areas to have the resources to do so. However, whilst the government have provided opportunities they have faced some criticism in regard to how effective it will be.

Flaws of Government Retraining Help

• The training is not flexible enough for people to fit learning around their lives and responsibilities (needs to have an option for college courses online)
• The focus needs to be on learning skills rather than gaining qualifications
• The courses offered need to match local demands. Someone could attend a course, but then still not find a job in that sector as there are none available within the local area.
• Individuals are only eligible for one course, therefore they may not be able to learn a lifelong skill
• It overlooks those who have been completely displaced from their industry by the pandemic and will need to completely retrain.

An issue which many employees may face is that businesses are planning on making redundancies rather than addressing training needs. In some cases, businesses could consider restructuring their business and retraining their current employees in a different line of work that is needed for that company. This could help to reduce the number of redundancies that a business will make. Yet HR may be distracted trying to control the impacts of COVID19, so learning and development of their employees may be ignored. Time should be taken to consider all options before the decision of redundancies is made.

At HPC we can offer you advice and guidance on how to restructure your business through retraining. If this is not an option for your business, we can also offer support in making redundancies. To ensure that you follow a factual and fair procedure.

If you have any concerns or would like to discuss anything further, please get in contact with the HPC team today.

T: 0844 800 5932

E: contact@highperformanceconsultancy.com

Twitter: @HPC_HRServices