Mark Combes, managing director at surveying group Severn Partnership, explains how it has used external training to turn technically-minded surveyors into proactive project managers.
With the UK now officially out of recession, it is unfortunately becoming apparent that a skills gap across a number of industries, including construction, holds negative implications for future business growth and development. Many industry employers have already responded by launching their own apprenticeship and higher apprenticeship schemes, but these will take a number of years to establish before they start developing the next generation of skilled workers.
At Severn Partnership, we recently took an alternative route to building our team. We’re a firm of land surveyors – we survey, measure and monitor to produce high quality plans, sections, elevations, all the way to BIM models. We work in the UK and overseas, utilising the latest robotic survey equipment, 3D laser scanning technology and 3D modelling software.
But with a lack of skilled surveyors and engineers at all levels, from apprentices, quality graduates, trainee managers through to skilled managers, we decided the best way to ensure talent remains in the sector is to invest in the existing workforce by combining internal training schemes with specialist external training to encourage staff to expand their skillsets and progress into other areas of the business.
We embarked upon a bespoke change management programme with Midlands-based consultancy, Clare Hall Organisational Development, investing in external training to up-skill our surveying team and give them the skills they require to adopt a more formal project management role within the business. This enabled our directors to free up time to concentrate on the future growth of the business and to innovate our services, without immediately having to take on additional resources.
"As a direct result of investing in external training, giving field-based surveyors the skills they need to adopt more of a project management role, we experienced increases in productivity, morale, and ultimately, profitability."
The result has been a 12% increase in staff productivity, and the external training has enabled us to release a number of new innovations to the marketplace including our Seeable brand, which allows non-technical project team members access to complex 3D data on desktops, smartphones and tablets through innovative apps.
Recent research from the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) shows that businesses that seek external training and information are 14% more ambitious and 50% more successful than those that do not. This is no more important than in the construction industry, which the RICS has revealed is dealing with its biggest workload since its quarterly surveys began in 1994, with a lack of new talent coming through.
As a direct result of investing in external training, giving field-based surveyors the skills they need to adopt more of a project management role, we experienced increases in productivity, morale, and ultimately, profitability, without having to embark on a recruitment drive at a time when the industry is struggling to cope with a skills shortage.
Investing in up-skilling our staff has had a multitude of benefits, helping to save both time and money by improving performance and reducing staff turnover. However, for up-skilling existing staff to become most effective, we think that business owners should adopt a proactive stance towards external training, instead of treating it as a reactive measure to sector challenges. Ensuring staff are skilled will put you in a position whereby you are able to stay ahead of industry challenges and changes and continue to grow, even at times when new talent is sparse.
Severn Partnership is a firm of Chartered Land Surveyors with offices in London and Shropshire
