Better skills lead to more productivity in the economy, in that people can generate more through efficiencies and skilling up, this is a statement you can understand without having in depth knowledge of economics. In the same way, most employers will say that they are always on the lookout for talent which coined the phrase “war on talent”.
These statements must be looked at in the backdrop of what is happening in the wider economy. Jeremy Hunt (the Chanceller) has reported that vacancies within the UK are at 980,000, and in contrast Andrew Bailey (the Governor for the Bank of England) has said the UK is at full employment with unemployment recorded at 3.9%. Does this mean you will always have a gap between people looking for a job, and the job markets?
The obvious answer must be yes. Yet, the UK is coming out of a technical recession which started at the end of 2023, during which you would have expected that jobs would be harder to find but this is not the case if there is full employment. So, what is the solution? As with everything in business, the more investment you make the better the outcomes. Instead of investing at the usual levels which give that consistent return, the alternative is to look at investing at different levels which may take a longer time to create the same returns. However, the outcomes from investing at these different levels is not just fulfilling for the employer but also creates employees with higher skillsets which they may have never achieved if they never had that opportunity. The employees in turn will express loyalty to the employer for those opportunities afforded to them.
Unlike most other careers, the barriers to entry to the legal profession are high in academic terms. However, if you ignore the pool of graduates, and you look a wider pool of students with varying educational achievements, you have a wider talent pool to choose from. That is why with the new apprenticeship programmes which span many sectors, this has to be the way to go. This is just a different way at looking at things which Hawkins Hatton (“HH”) adopted since its inception some 20 years ago. Training is the beating heart of HH, sitting alongside client service, as it has always been the view of the founders that giving people opportunities in life gives something back to the profession and people from different walks of life. A lot of people may have been sceptical about looking to train people who have not fulfilled all of the conventional academic criteria required, but even professions such as medicine, are now looking at apprenticeships. It may be harkening back to how things were in the early days of the industrial revolution, where people went into jobs as an apprentice to learn a skill. But it is these skills which are transferable and will enable more people to play their part in increasing productivity. To this end, I would encourage all employers to look at apprentices as having a wider talent pool creates a stronger business which is better able to deal with the challenges of an ever changing world.
