Skills

Equipping you for Lifelong Learning

By 2030 many of today’s school leavers will be embarking on jobs not in existence today. At South Thames College we recognise that innovating our curriculum is vital to equipping not only young people with the skills for their future careers but also our adult learners. Our flexible and dynamic courses meet the needs of a changing workforce and ensure that lifelong learning is at the heart of what we do.

Our Adult Courses are for learners aged 19 years or over. These qualifications are usually part time to fit around current commitments and to help you retrain, pick up new skills or progress in your chosen career. Many courses are free as they are 100% government funded via the Adult Education Budget.

We offer professional, certified qualifications in a range of subjects to help you achieve your career goals. These cover various sectors and industries such as Accounting, Counselling or Teacher Training. Many students choose to study work-based degrees to improve skills and career prospects and gain a qualification whilst also earning a wage and putting the skills to use on real-world projects, with a benefit to the employer as well as the individual. Ifeoma Iheanacho studying Early Years Foundation Degree at South Thames College commented, “I chose this course to learn about child development and to understand how children learn which will subsequently help me to adapt my pedagogy in supporting them. As we all know the Early Years Foundation stage is a starting point for every child, and they need a solid foundation. I am learning more about the educational theorists and their theories and the influence historical and international perspectives have on the EYFS today. I really enjoy how interactive the lessons are. I work in a school and studying this course has led me to rethink my pedagogy as well as giving me the confidence to speak up in the practice.”

Visit stcg.ac.uk/undergraduate for more information on our degree offering and tips for returning to education.

As well as work-based degrees, we offer bespoke training courses to upskill or retrain for both employers and individuals. We have recently introduced new courses focused on Mental Health & Wellbeing training. All businesses can be affected by mental health and now require an understanding of the issues that are needed to support their staff. It is critical that businesses have trained and knowledgeable experts who understand mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. Employees come away from our course feeling prepared and confident with the appropriate tools and resources to support one another in the workplace. ❛❛ I chose this course to learn about child development and

to understand how children learn which will subsequently help me to adapt my pedagogy in supporting them. As we all know the Early Years

Foundation stage is a starting point for every

❜❜child, and they need a solid foundation.

Ifeoma Iheanacho

Email business@stcg.ac.uk to find out how we can support you or your organisation to be better equipped to deal with mental health workplace issues.

stcg.ac.uk/south-thames-college

Predicting

resignation risk and what to do with the data

Since I joined Wandsworth Chamber of commerce a few months ago and have had the pleasure of meeting many of you, my fellow members, I consistently hear about the challenges of recruiting and retaining staff in the current market.

There are 1.3 million job vacancies in the UK recorded in the three months January – April 2022. This is around 630,000 more than the same period in 2021. We know this is in part due to the loss of foreign workers due to the UK’s exit from the European union, and many people deciding to stop working after the effect of the pandemic. We also believe that many workers stayed in their jobs through Covid for job security and then decided to leave once the country returned to some semblance of normality. All of the above is of course interesting but doesn’t help those of you desperately trying to recruit and retain staff. I attended a very useful presentation by a fellow chamber member providing tips on recruitment so I thought I would focus this article on retention and how to recognise the signs that your staff may be thinking of Ieaving. Before we get into the nitty gritty of that though just two key tips on recruitment:

1. Don’t just concentrate on a candidate’s

technical skills. Think about the behaviours they need to do the job well and fit in with the culture of the company. Articulate those to enable you ask the right questions at interview to help you find out. If you need help to create those behaviours and questions, please do get in touch.

2. Make sure that you provide a good candidate

experience. Other than the obvious being pleasant and communicative, also be on time, commit to clear timescales for the stages of the selection process, stick to them and provide feedback to the unsuccessful candidates so that even though they didn’t get the job they will have a good impression of your business.

How to recognise the signs that a member of your team is thinking of leaving

Employee turnover is known to cost tens of thousands in direct and indirect costs. There are simple ways for companies to look ahead at what might happen and deal with the cases before they’re forced to react to a notice letter. A few years ago (in 2019 to be exact), IBM announced that the company had developed artificial intelligence that can predict at 95% accuracy when an employee is planning to resign within six months. Technology has already transformed much of people management, and as solutions develop by becoming better and more cost-effective, the trend will continue. If anyone has had good or bad experiences with resignation predicting AI, we’d love to hear? Every company is not willing or able to invest in technology that will point out potential leavers. Luckily there has been research that helps managers to look for signs of someone planning an exit. This SMHR article outlines the 13 things to keep an eye on – and also the ones that traditionally have been seen as clues that someone is on the market: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/ hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/signs-thatsomeone-is-about-to-quit.aspx For anyone too busy to read the whole article, here’s a list of the behaviours that research suggests to be strong indicators of potential resignation:

1. Their work productivity has decreased more than usual. 2. They have acted less like a team player than usual. 3. They have been doing the minimum amount of work more frequently than usual. 4. They have been less interested in pleasing their manager than usual. 5. They have been less willing to commit to long-term timelines than usual. 6. They have exhibited a negative change in attitude. 7. They have exhibited less effort and work motivation than usual. 8. They have exhibited less focus on job related matters than usual. 9. They have expressed dissatisfaction with their current job more frequently than usual. 10. They have expressed dissatisfaction with their supervisor more frequently than usual. 11. They have left early from work more frequently than usual. 12. They have lost enthusiasm for the mission of the organisation. 13. They have shown less interest in working with customers than usual.

We always recommend that clients train their managers to evaluate resignation risks and every 3-4 months evaluate how to proactively respond to individual cases – before it’s too late. An annual or six-monthly evaluation is too infrequent, as a typical time between an employee deciding that they want to change to handing in their resignation is six months. Companies cannot (and shouldn’t) try to stop every resignation. Some turnover is healthy and sometimes there’s an irrecoverable mismatch between the company and the employee. In these cases, the employee should be allowed to leave and wished all the best for their future. A typical quarterly review should go like this: each manager reviews with their manager those at risk of leaving and what they’ve seen to support that conclusion. Then a decision is made whether it’s appropriate to take action to retain the colleague (a regrettable resignation) or plan for a replacement (no regret). Even the regrettable resignations can’t always be stopped if someone has been offered a role that the current employer simply cannot match. The regrettable resignations are obviously the ones with difficult to replace skills, sustained high performance and potential to take on weightier roles in future. The typical first response to a flight risk is to look at the individual’s compensation. We know that it is a useful starting point (looking at internal peers and available market data for similar roles) but often is not the long-term solution if other factors causing unhappiness are at play. After all, if someone feels that they are underappreciated in other ways, they can’t take time off, get along with their boss or can’t see an attractive career path with the current organisation, offering more money will not increase their motivation to perform. It may buy some time, though. Working for the right manager, having more interesting work, development opportunities, working environment etc. can often mean more if the money is at the right level. Not many people leave for less money but it’s not entirely unheard of. Individual cases require individual attention but often companies deal with issues related to company structure. Apart from the cost of regrettable resignations (replacement costs and productivity losses), structural problems that can cause resignations are the same ones that impact the company’s performance negatively. While exit interviews are a must anywhere, they are valuable only if they’re continuously analysed. The limitation of exit interviews is that often tell what the leadership already know about resignations: remuneration budgets may have been limited, learning reduced to cut costs or not many people progressing because of limited positions. The underlying reasons are more often found in three domains:

1. Do people have sufficient autonomy in their roles to perform and experiment, 2. Has the organisation expressed it purpose and mission in a way that it allows the employees to align with it, and... 3. Does the organisation support its employees to reach their full potential.

When we work with our clients, we help them anticipate the immediate needs, prioritise them and design workable solutions. But we also support creation of a culture that eliminates the individual cases as much as possible – making high performance and retention go hand in hand. I hope that information has been helpful, please do get in touch if you have any questions or as struggling with issues of recruitment and retention at: info@jm-consulting.co.uk

For more updates on people issues please look at our website

www.jm-consulting.co.uk

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