Do or Do Not...there is no Try

I had the pleasure of speaking during the Dundee leg of the The Open University 's Scottish Roadshows today. As its 04/05/2023 it would be completely remiss of me not to have had a play with the theme of the day!

The event was focussed on Skills for Business, to hear about the opportunities for businesses to invest in their people, and learn about the funding available through the OU.

So, imagine you’re pulling together the best Jedi warrior force that you can, do you choose the individuals who will practice their skills, be interested in supporting each other to be better and ultimately work together to defeat obstacles in their way?

If you’re not remotely a Star Wars fan then you’re probably wondering what I’m blethering on about - I’d definitely encourage you to google some of the Yoda sayings…he was a smart wee guy!

But lets get back to the topic of skills...

Every employer I talk to tells me the same things:

• People are their biggest investment & their hardest challenge

They either can’t get enough of the right staff to handle all the orders they have now, or know they have an ageing workforce that they need a succession plan for. 

At Dundee & Angus Chamber of Commerce we were in the same position: we had an ambitious growth plan but didn’t have enough of the right people to deliver on that. So what did we do:

First of all we committed to the apprenticeship family - Foundation Apprenticeships, Modern Apprenticeships, Graduate Apprenticeships (as a micro business with 9 staff it can be a really great way to approach bringing young people into your business that will require that investment in developing their skills and bring a great diversity to your business culture

That meant we attracted ambitious and engaging young people into our business which made us learn lots about how we needed to adapt our working practices to support an entirely new generation who didn’t come equipped to use outlook etc, and what we’d consider basic work software tools

Second, we saw an opportunity in the UK Kickstart scheme to work with young people adversely impacted by Covid job losses and we brought 12 into our own business over 2 years - 6 month paid placements that allowed us to support young people, see who could transition into more settled roles in our own team or who we could recommend on in our network to move to roles more suited to their skills and experience.

Micro businesses will invest and create roles with the right package of support around them - in our network we placed 200 young people into jobs through the Kickstart scheme.

There are other funding schemes available to support job creation through the Local Authorities - give Gregor M. (Dundee) or Fiona O'Connor (Angus) a shout to find out how they can help you locally!

Third, we invested in upskilling our entire team: from Insights personal development profiles; online short courses with the college, a suite of training courses that cover all sorts of skills that our team can choose…and above all a commitment to ensuring everyone in our business has personal development plans, these allow staff and their manager to identify training opportunities then put in place a plan to deliver the upskilling and utilise the time that we give our team during their working week to devote to training.

And last but not least, we gather staff feedback and ask where they see themselves & their career developing.

Its likely that around 70% of the costs of a business will be tied to your people so investing in that resource is always going to be worth it!

There's this rumoured exchange that goes around online - I really wonder if this conversation ever happened...however for the purposes of today let's assume someone has said this somewhere!

COO to CEO "What if we invest in developing our people and they leave?"

CEO replies: "What happens if they don’t and they stay!"

What I take away from that is that as business leaders we MUST invest in our workforce and our businesses - its a no-brainer.

So lets give Yoda our last word:

Do or Do Not. There is no Try

May the 4th be with you today, whatever is on your schedule!