Following the summer break, the events calendar is firmly back underway, and on behalf of the IOR, Matt Harvey attended the Park Royal Business Group Forum, bringing the RACHP sector into an important wider conversation around skills, employment and workforce development.

The Forum, hosted by West London Business and the Park Royal Business Group, focused on the increasingly important theme of Skills and Employment. The event brought together employers, employment specialists, public sector organisations and businesses to discuss some of the challenges and opportunities facing the workforce.

The forum included contributions focused on occupational health and wellbeing, employment and skills, social value and social mobility, as well as the Department for Work and Pensions’ employment initiatives and the Shaw Trust’s Connect to Work programme. The event provided an important opportunity to hear how employers can access support to recruit, retain and develop their workforce.

Why events like this matter to the RACHP sector

For the RACHP industry, skills and employment remain among the most significant challenges facing businesses.

The sector is experiencing increasing demand for skilled people as the transition towards lower-carbon technologies accelerates. However, many businesses continue to face challenges recruiting suitably skilled engineers, attracting young people into the sector and retaining experienced employees.

Events such as the Park Royal Business Group Forum are therefore important because they move the conversation beyond simply asking, “Where can we find more engineers?”

Instead, they encourage employers to consider the wider workforce agenda:

• How do we attract people who may never have considered a career in RACHP?
• How do we support people into employment who need additional help to enter the workplace?
• How can businesses improve retention?
• What role does health and wellbeing play in workforce productivity?
• How can social value and social mobility create new talent pipelines?
• How can employers work more effectively with government, employment providers and training organisations?

For IOR members, these are increasingly important questions.

One of the strongest messages from the event was the potential for employers to access a wider and more diverse talent pool.

Traditional recruitment methods alone are unlikely to solve the RACHP skills challenge. Advertising for an experienced engineer simply means that employers are often competing with one another for the same limited pool of talent.

The employment initiatives discussed at the forum demonstrate an opportunity to think differently.

Programmes such as Connect to Work are focused on helping people access employment and supporting individuals who may face barriers to entering or remaining in work. The DWP’s Jobs Guarantee initiative also highlights the importance of employers working alongside public services to provide employment, training and development opportunities.

For RACHP employers, this could create opportunities to:

• Reach people from new and more diverse backgrounds.
• Develop entry-level talent pipelines.
• Create work experience, traineeship and apprenticeship opportunities.
• Support people returning to employment.
• Develop stronger relationships with local employment and skills organisations.
• Use training and mentoring to develop future engineers.

There is also a significant opportunity around social value.

Increasingly, major construction and infrastructure projects expect organisations to demonstrate how they are creating employment, training and community benefits. The RACHP sector has an opportunity to position itself not simply as a technical industry, but as an industry that creates careers, supports communities and contributes directly to the UK’s transition towards a more sustainable economy.

This could be particularly important for IOR members working across construction, building services, heat pumps, energy efficiency and major infrastructure projects.

Another important area discussed at the forum was occupational health and wellbeing.

This is particularly relevant to the RACHP sector.

Engineers can work in physically demanding environments, including construction sites, plant rooms, rooftops, industrial facilities and customer premises. Long working hours, travelling, physical demands and the pressure of delivering projects can all affect employee wellbeing. For employers already struggling to recruit experienced engineers, retaining the people they have must become an equally important priority.

A stronger focus on workplace wellbeing could help RACHP businesses improve:

• Employee retention.
• Productivity.
• Absence management.
• Workplace safety.
• Employee engagement.
• Long-term career sustainability.

 For IOR members, this is an important reminder that solving the skills shortage is not only about attracting the next generation. It is also about ensuring that experienced people want to remain within the industry.

Many RACHP businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises. They often do not have dedicated HR, recruitment or training teams. For a small business, engaging with multiple employment programmes, training providers and public sector organisations can sometimes feel complicated and time-consuming.

There is also the challenge of ensuring that employment programmes genuinely connect people to the technical skills required by the sector.

RACHP is a highly technical industry. Employers cannot simply recruit individuals into engineering roles without providing the appropriate training, supervision and development.

This means that there needs to be stronger collaboration between:

Employers + Training Providers + Employment Services + Professional Bodies + Industry Organisations

The IOR has an important role to play within this landscape, and this is why we introduced the IOR Industry Skills Alliance. We want to bring the voice of the RACHP sector into conversations that may otherwise take place without industry representation.

The skills challenge facing RACHP cannot be solved by the industry working in isolation.

Employers need stronger relationships with schools, colleges, training providers, employment services, local authorities, government and organisations supporting people into work.

Being a member of the skills alliance, this creates an opportunity to become more involved and your businesses can support the next generation by:

• Offering work experience.
• Recruiting apprentices.
• Supporting careers events.
• Becoming STEM ambassadors.
• Providing industry talks to schools and colleges.
• Working with local employment organisations.
• Supporting people from different backgrounds into the sector.
• Creating clearer entry routes into technical careers.

The sector has an incredible story to tell.

We cannot recruit our way out of the skills shortage by competing for the same experienced engineers. We need to create new pathways, reach new audiences and work with organisations outside of our traditional networks.

The future workforce of RACHP may come from places we have not traditionally looked before.

By engaging with employers, employment organisations, schools, colleges and communities, members within the skills alliance can play a leading role in creating a stronger, more diverse and sustainable workforce for the future.