Managers Look To Government For Support in Retraining and Upskilling The Workforce

@cmi_managers – Managers Look To Government For Support in Retraining and Upskilling The Workforce

New CMI findings reveal UK managers’ call for Government support beyond JRS – and potential solutions to the UK training gap.

Employers should be offered support from Government to provide high-quality retraining and upskilling opportunities, say 90% of managers in a new survey by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). A further 91% of managers agreed that future job retention support should be linked to a commitment to retraining and skills. This suggests that the UK’s retraining and upskilling system is not yet sufficient to satisfy current or future skills demand.

As the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) winds down and lockdown measures gradually ease, only 22% of managers expect their organisation to return to normal in 2020. With 36% of managers expecting redundancies due to covid-19, and 26% expecting those redundancies in 2020, this overwhelming call for increased skills points to a need for education and training across every generation in the workforce. 

Ann Francke OBE, Chief Executive of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), said:

“If the UK is to have the most motivated and highly skilled workforce in the world, then over the next two years we need to see reality match the rhetoric. To build the strongest foundations possible for future prosperity, we must invest in both upskilling and reskilling and make maximum use of existing high quality networks – such as our brilliant professional bodies, universities and colleges – whilst encouraging innovators to fill genuine gaps. We should also add flexibility to existing  mechanisms like the apprenticeship levy. Creating lots of new ad-hoc structures and mechanisms would only add complexity to the system and make it difficult to navigate for individuals and employers alike.”

CMI members overwhelmingly support the idea of an apprenticeship guarantee (86%) but only 36% agree this should be targeted at lower skills levels (level 2 and 3). A further 87% believe that the apprenticeship programme should be at any skills level required to meet employer needs. To support the needs of the workforce, CMI is calling on the Government to implement a number of policy recommendations beyond the apprenticeship guarantee. 

These recommendations and supporting case studies can be found at: 

https://www.managers.org.uk/insights/policy-papers/unlocking-the-potential-of-the-uk-workforce