Inadequate Staff Training Costs British Industry Twelve Billion a Year
The British workforce is under performing because staff are receiving little or no induction into new jobs according to a new MORI survey commissioned by recruitment leader newmonday (www.newmonday.com) and e-learning solutions provider, Futuremedia Plc. The findings reveal that 3.5 million UK employees say they have been inadequately trained for their current position, and 17.9 million do not believe that they have made a significant contribution to their role when they started.
The failure of new staff to "hit the ground running" is costing UK business an estimated 16312 billion each year paid in salary to staff that are not up to speed in their jobs. (This calculation is based on figures supplied by the Office of National Statistics and the May 2000 Labour Force Survey. The actual figure refers to the total UK working population, twenty per cent of whom move jobs each year.)
The research shows, that inadequate training directly reduces worker productivity. Almost three-quarters, 74 per cent (17.9 million), of the workforce do not believe they made a significant contribution to their job when they first started.
Alarmingly, 29 per cent (7.2 million) of British staff do not think they made a significant contribution to their current job until their first 3 months had passed, and almost 4 million (15 per cent) take 6 months to fully settle into their role, costing British industry a considerable amount in lost productivity.
Roderick Wijsmuller, Managing Director, of newmonday said: "For a long time the employment trend has been moving away from 'job-for-life' towards more flexible working, and more frequent migration between jobs. Skills are suffering as a result of poor investment in people, regarded as more 'temporary' business assets. This research is a wake-up call to British industry to take responsibility and invest in people through providing better training and induction programmes. It is also a call to candidates to wake up to the importance of their own induction and training programmes."
Younger employees, (15-34 year olds) are suffering most from this trend in the work place with 1.7 million from this age bracket saying they have been inadequately trained for their current job, compared to just 600,000 employees aged 55 and over. This is a worrying statistic as the best-trained members of the British economy are preparing to enter retirement.
When comparing survey results across the country, a greater percentage of those in the North and in the Midlands felt that they did not receive adequate training.
Mats Johansson, CEO, of Futuremedia Plc, said: "Our research indicates that British industry is not operating at its full potential, and current induction and training practices are falling way short of employees' expectations. This presents worrying signs for the future and implies that British industry may not be investing enough in the training and induction needed to optimise its performance."
Ruth Spellman, CEO, of Investors In People, said: "Putting people at the heart of business is the most cost-effective decision board directors can ever make. Employees are central to business success, so it is vital for staff to be skilled, flexible and motivated: this can be achieved through planned and consistent training and development. In today's increasingly competitive employment market more and more companies are recruiting for attitude, then training for skills... if you look after your inputs, the outputs will look after themselves."
Selected survey results:
Interviews were conducted face-to-face with a sample of 973 full and part time workers, representative of the British working population at large. Interviews were undertaken between 24th and 30th May 2001. Full documentation of the results is available on request.
Given that the findings are representative of all workers in Great Britain, it is possible to use the statistics quoted in the report to estimate the number of workers that hold any particular opinion. For example, 10 per cent of British workers (full and part time) can be quoted as 'around 2.4 million GB workers' (All GB workers 24.8 million x 10per cent = 2.48 million).
Results depicting percentage of survey participants asked 'how long it has taken them to make a significant contribution to their current job role'.
Technical details
The following spokespeople are available for comment. All enquiries taken by Midnight Communications, contact details are enclosed below.
Roderick Wijsmuller, Managing Director, newmonday Mats Johansson, CEO, Futuremedia Plc Ruth Spellman, CEO, Investors in People
newmonday newmonday is a pan-European joint venture between VNU, the leading international publishing group, and Randstad Holding, the world's third largest staffing and recruitment firm. The company is rapidly expanding throughout Europe, with operations in the UK, Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
newmonday provides everything professionals need to manage and develop their careers, with industry news channels for each professional sector and expert career and training advice.
Futuremedia Plc / easycando Founded in 1982, Futuremedia Plc (NASDAQ: FMDAY) is the developer of easycando(TM), provider of effective e-learning solutions, and co-developer of Solstra(TM), the Learning Management System (LMS).
The easycando(TM) solution provides a single source of market-leading content, learning management technology, professional services and support. Learning can be delivered over an existing intranet or on a hosted ASP basis to extend and enhance existing classroom based approaches.
