Are we facing a skills shortage??

Steve Mole
23 July 2014

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It’s inevitable: when the economy heats up, people start moving jobs and we all have to fight harder to hang onto our talent. But does that mean we are facing a skills shortage, asks Steve Mole of business consultant CPC.

One of the big challenges for our property and infrastructure clients right now is to understand what skills they have and what skills they will need: more of a skills management problem than a skills shortage one.

When it comes to resourcing a capital investment programme, organisations always face the dilemma of how to get the right mix of permanent employees and consultants.  If their internal team is too large, they run the risk of being overstaffed, should funding be pulled or investment plans change and that means absorbing the cost of a standing army. If the core team is too lean, there’s a chance of becoming over-reliant on outside support and limited knowledge retention.

We all need to do our bit, with work placements, apprenticeships, graduate training and leadership programmes.  This requires long-term thinking and commitment from us – which would be so much easier if we had a clear vision of what our clients resourcing needs are in the future.

So what’s the right answer? 50:50, 60:40, 80:20 - staff to consultants.  Clients could make life a lot easier by taking a longer-term view of their programmes – five to ten years – in order to understand what the true internal and external resourcing levels should be.  Continuity and long-term planning is usually a feature of their core business, but when it comes to capital programmes the question re staff to consultant ratios is often not addressed, and less likely to be communicated with the supply chain.

Of course, to work out what outside support you will need, you first need to understand the skills you already have. You need to know who’s got what skills and what job they are currently doing. Recently we have been helping our clients assess their internal and external staff to work out any skills gaps and what training, development and recruitment will be needed to successfully deliver their capital programmes.

One model which is growing in popularity among our clients is that of the delivery partner arrangement used for the London Olympics 2012, Crossrail and HS2. The added value for the client is that the consultant companies which form the joint partnership will together bring a greater depth of capability, as well as a wide range of skills. A long-term relationship between client and consultant creates a stronger culture and the opportunity to take lessons learned from one phase to the next.

The same resourcing issues apply to the successful management of consultancies, which makes it more important to work in partnership with clients to have robust plans on how we can meet future client resourcing needs and accommodate growth within our own business plans.

All that said, we are definitely facing a skills shortage in the longer-term with the need to attract the next generation of talent to the industry more pressing than it has ever been. We all need to do our bit, with work placements, apprenticeships, graduate training and leadership programmes.  This requires long-term thinking and commitment from us – which would be so much easier if we had a clear vision of what our clients resourcing needs are in the future.

Steve Mole is managing partner of CPC, a fast growing company offering project management and business consultancy services to the transport, property, local government, health and education sectors.