Skills shortages? We’ve got no idea

As an aid for understanding the current labour market it was useless. Most of it hinged on the definitions of skilled staff and the other problem was that it was predicated on nothing changing in the labour market. Hence it was simply throwing up spurious labour market requirements.

When questioned, the presenter admitted that a lot of skilled workers were excluded from the survey, the reason being that they did not have the appropriate job titles. A good example is foreign architects working in British practices. Unless registered with the Architects Registration Board they cannot call themselves architects. They are doing the work of architects and proving very effective, but are not counted as professional staff.

The same applies to the many professionals not working in professional offices. Those with contractors, local authorities, clients and so on are again not included in the survey.

Immediately prior to the labour market presentation we had one about a building information management tool used to link all the parties in the construction process with the aim of eliminating waste, improving quality and, just as important, increasing the profitability of the business.

It looked fabulous and took me back to the early 1980s when MRP, or manufacturing resource planning, was going great guns in the manufacturing sector. MRP and its successors were really at the heart of transforming manufacturing processes as it brought a high level of integration through the supply chain, even on development activity. Computing power then was a fraction of that available now. The main challenge as ever, though, was to get people to change.

In the end it was a rather brutal process. Those companies that did not change went out of business; those that made the changes thrived. What also helped was the establishment of companies like Nissan and Toyota in the UK to provide added impetus.

So let’s get back to my CIC meeting. We discussed labour shortages as though the discussion on innovation had not taken place. It is this inability or unwillingness to connect issues that is the most frustrating. Perhaps it is because it is easier to do what has always been done than to innovate.

Innovation needs vision, it needs skill, it needs courage and in this industry a thick skin. Thankfully, there are a few innovators out there in the industry. It’s a shame there appeared to be none at that meeting.