In recent months, we have seen an increasing skills shortage in trades people in Australia. There are currently nearly 10,000 jobs available for labourers, nearly 23,000 for technicians and so on. It is becoming increasing difficult for businesses and individuals to find skilled tradespeople.
Examples of Trade Jobs
- Gardener
- Landscaper
- Refuse collector
- Plumber
- Mechanic
- Electrician
These are just some examples. There are many more trade jobs that are available.
The Advantages of Trade Jobs
Working in a trade job offers many advantages –
- At a time of skills shortage, it can be possible to cherry pick the best jobs.
- Fees increase at time of shortage.
But it is not just about money, trade jobs can also be –
No day is the same. Trades people also have the advantage of being able to set up their own business is they wish.
Being a trades person is flexible, varied and interesting.
What Can You Do As a Business?
If you run your own business or organisation and are struggling to get trades people, what can you do?
Tell People about the Opportunities
There can be a lack of understanding about the opportunities available in trade. There are many misconceptions and myths about working in trade industries, and people may just not realise what is available.
- Tell people what vacancies you have available
- Tell them what they would be doing in a normal day
- Show them that it is not just about one task, but a wide range of varied and interesting tasks
- Show them the training opportunities
- Tell them about the career opportunities once they have qualified
Make people aware that trade jobs can be for young people, yes, but they can also be for people who are a bit older and perhaps want to change careers or look for something more interesting and fulfilling.
Training New Staff
When new staff come to work for you, make sure that they receive suitable training. Training shows that you are willing to invest in a person, that you want them to work for you for a while. Research shows that people tend to change job every two to five years now, so by investing in people, you hopefully gain their trust and loyalty.
- Offer training courses to staff.
- Help them to develop their skills. Then move on to the next one.
- Offer regular updates to their knowledge and skills.
Training doesn’t stop. To have an efficient, effective and up to date workforce does require frequent training opportunities.
Succession Training
You have your workforce, they are trained and can do what needs to be done. What happens next? As we just said, people tend to leave jobs after two to five years. If you want to maintain a stable workforce, you need to ensure that you have plans in place for when people leave.
- If a junior member of staff leaves, you most likely need to recruit from outside the organisation and start the training process again.
- If trained or more senior staff and managers leave, then your options may be more difficult. You may not have a person who is suitably trained and qualified to jump into their role.
This is where succession planning comes in.
Say you have two managers in your organisation. They might stay for years, they might not. What happens if one, or both, leaves? You need to have someone in place to replace them.
Succession planning means that you are training other staff in the skills required to take on other roles. You might start to train supervisors so that they have the skill to take over management roles. You might then train senior worker to take over supervisor’s roles should they be promoted to manager and so on. This might sound like hard work, but by training staff to be able to fulfil different roles, it means that your business runs more efficiently and smoothly, as you have the staff available and ready to take on different roles.
Succession training is useful in many ways –
- It means you have suitable candidates to take on more senior roles if someone leaves.
- It shows that you respect, and are willing to invest, in your existing staff.
- This promotes staff morale.
- It means that people are less likely to leave as they can see the opportunities available to them in the future.
- You can see what skills staff already have and help them to improve and develop them.
- You can help staff to specialise.
By showing that you are willing to train your staff, you are showing that you respect them, that you want them to stay and you are willing to invest in them.
Training
This may sound like a lot of training. It might sound time consuming and costly. But we can help –
- ACS Distance Education offers online courses .
- Our students can study from the comfort of their own workplace or home.
- Students can work at any time to suit them and you. You might want them to work at set hours during the work day, take a day off a week to study, or work outside their traditional working hours while they train.
- As students progress and develop, we offer more specialist trade courses to help students advance.
- Students have as long as they like to complete the course. We do not put pressure on students to complete by certain dates, so you can decide with your employees what works for the employee and your business.
- We offer short courses and longer courses, so you choose what suits you and your budget.
Train Your Staff Easily and Flexibly
Training new staff and existing staff is important for any business that wants to be successful. A high staff turnover can be costly in terms of recruitment, missed contracts, poor reputation and lost opportunities. By training staff, it shows them that you want them to stay with your business and are willing to invest in them and their future.
Training your staff can be carried out easily and flexibly with ACS.
Contact us to discuss your training and needs and requirements
Our tutors and staff are happy to help and advise you on what course(s) and training would be most suitable for you and your needs.
Click here to contact us.