UKCES says decline in mid-level jobs has blocked development
Climbing the career ladder has become harder as technology has increasingly infiltrated the workplace, according to a report from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES).
The report said that changes in the way we work during the past 20 years have led to the creation of 4.6 million more high skilled roles, 1.3 million low skilled jobs, but crucially, mid-level or stepping stone posts have declined.
This fall in secretarial and clerical roles has made career progression more difficult as well as having a negative impact on social mobility.
To redress the balance, UKCES, backed by the CBI and the TUC, has called on employers to take the lead. It has identified five priority actions for employers in the next 20 years. These include: leading on skills development; improving management, job design and employee engagement; increasing the routes to quality ‘earning and learning’ like apprenticeships; closing the gap between work and education; and using jobs and progression to measure success not just qualifications.
Sir Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the John Lewis Partnership and UKCES, said: “The workplace is changing at a faster rate than it ever has done. It’s creating some terrific jobs with great opportunities for some people, but not for others, where it’s leading to lower pay for longer.
“Old career paths are either vanishing or becoming much harder to navigate. Encouragingly, new paths are emerging, but they are far from achieving the scale and accessibility that's needed to make a difference to enough people and to the economy at large. To address that, the imperative is stronger than ever to establish quality vocational pathways as a preferred alternative for many.
“Up to 90 per cent of the current workforce will still be in work in the next decade. That's where we will win or lose on productivity. And that's why employers must lead, and be given the space and encouragement to do so. That needs to start early, with more integration between the worlds of work and education, and extend, via a new norm of earning and learning, into a lifetime of development, increasing productivity and pay.”
CIPD chief executive Peter Cheese, said: “Tackling the UK’s poor record on productivity and addressing the mismatches between what the education system provides and what employers require needs to be a national priority.
“The UKCES’s five strategic skills priorities provide a sound basis for tackling these fundamental challenges facing the UK.
“We particularly welcome the emphasis on workplace productivity. The call to bring together leaders from business, trade unions and government to provide strategic insight, policy co-ordination and a focal point for sharing and improving best practice, echoes the CIPD’s call for the creation of a Workplace Commission to fulfil exactly this purpose.
“The skills statement also underlines the critical importance of organisations being able to demonstrate the value of their people, through the development of good quality HR metrics and analytics.”
He added that the Valuing your Talent programme run jointly by CIPD, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and the Chartered Management Institute, with the support of the UKCES, is designed to support organisations work in this area.