Advanced search | Help

Andy Phillips
Head of Skills Research
West Midlands Regional Observatory
T: 0121 202 3251
E: andy.phillips@wmro.org

More perspectives from the Regional Skills Assessment:

Regional Skills Assessment 2007: employers

The annual Regional Skills Assessment gives an overview of the key issues facing the West Midlands economy with regard to the skills agenda.

Skills are at the centre of the national and regional policy agenda. There is increasing recognition that increased investment in training and development by employers and raising the skill levels of individuals are the key to improving economic performance and tackling deprivation and exclusion.

Employers

In order to develop and grow employers require a workforce that is more highly qualified, with a better mix of 'employability' skills and with improved management and leadership capabilities.

However, only 56% of employers in the West Midlands have invested in training for their staff in the last year – the lowest proportion in England.

Nevertheless there are numerous examples of employers ‘bucking the trend’ and it will be important for more employers to follow their lead by:

Recognising the importance of training at the highest level.
Systematically assessing the needs to be addressed.
Working with training providers to devise solutions.
Evaluating the impact of the training provided.
Exploiting the benefits of training to increase productivity and sales, and to improve customer satisfaction, win new business and reduce staff turnover.

Downloads

The full report, key headlines, executive summary, a supplementary report on skills issues and challenges in key sectors, rural profile, data charts, datasets and sub-regional profiles are all available on the downloads tab at the top of this page.