White Paper

The aim of the National Employer Skills Survey is to provide robust and reliable information from employers in England on skills deficiencies and workforce development activities to serve as a common basis to develop policy and assess the impact of skills initiatives. The survey includes employers across all sectors of business activity in England. ‘Employers’ are defined as establishments (individual sites) rather than enterprises.

This report presents findings from the 2014 UK Commission Employer Perspectives Survey (EPS), the third biennial survey in this series. It provides insight into the thoughts and behaviour of over 18,000 employers across the UK as they make decisions about how to engage with training providers, schools, colleges and individuals in the wider skills system, to get the skills they need. Key areas covered in this report include training; work experience; collaboration with schools, colleges and universities; Apprenticeships and recruitment, including of young and old people. The EPS is carried out in alternate years with the Employer Skills Survey series (ESS), which is the definitive source of intelligence on employer skills needs in the UK. The two survey series have been designed to complement each other in providing a clear picture of the skills challenges faced by employers across the UK.

This report presents the findings of the UK Commission’s Employer Perspectives Survey 2012 (UKCEPS 2012), the second in a series of biennial, large scale surveys of employers designed to provide a UK-wide picture of employer perspectives of, and experiences in, the recruitment and skills landscape.

This report presents the findings of the UK Employer Perspectives Survey 2010. The Employer Perspectives Survey (EPS) is one of two major employer surveys conducted on a biennial basis by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (the UK Commission). The aim of the survey is to provide robust evidence for policy makers regarding employers’ engagement and satisfaction with government support for recruitment and workforce development. The survey is unique in that it allows for comparisons to be made across the four nations of the UK, where different initiatives are in operation, and it compares employers’ perspectives of services and initiatives across three areas of government policy: general business support; employment; and skills. The UK Employer Perspectives Survey 2010 developed from employer surveys conducted by one of the UK Commission’s predecessors, the Sector Skills Development Agency, and was designed to enable some comparisons to be made with previous survey findings. The Survey was also designed to complement the UK Commission’s other major employer survey, a UK-wide Employer Skills Survey. Whilst the Employer Perspectives Survey is externally focused, in that it examines employer awareness and use of external support, the Employer Skills Survey is internally focused and seeks to understand employers’ skills challenges and their responses to these challenges. The UK Employer Perspectives Survey 2010 was conducted between June and August 2010, as the UK was emerging from recession and in the immediate aftermath of the election of the coalition government. Reductions in government spending were anticipated but the details were unknown.

This report provides analysis from a major survey of employers across the UK, exploring their experiences and perceptions of key aspects of the skills system across the UK. This is an important platform of evidence for the newly formed UK Commission for Employment and Skills in delivering its remit to raise UK prosperity and opportunity by improving employment and skills. The survey covers: Skill challenges experienced by employers; Training practices; Wider high performance working practices; Perceptions of vocational qualifications (this aspect was included for the first time in this survey to provide data for the evaluation of the UK Vocational Qualification Reform, Programme); Perceptions of Sector Skills Councils. The survey was conducted between December 2007 and February 2008, before the economic downturn began to bite in the UK. It is important to view the results of the survey in this context.

Digital has already delivered a major blow to businesses slow to respond. There’s more to come. The very concept of work is being redefined as different generations enter and exit the workforce amidst a rapidly changing technological landscape. Responsive and responsible leaders must act to harness the power of the Fourth Industrial Revolution for long-term advantage and shareholder value. Mindful to put their people first, at the center of change. The new leadership imperative is clear: Create the future workforce. Now.

Concerns that technological progress degrades job opportunities have been expressed over much of the last two centuries by both professional economists and the general public. These concerns can be seen in narratives both in scholarly publications and in the news media. Part of the expressed concern about jobs has been about the potential for increased economic inequality. But another part of the concern has been about a perceived decline in job quality in terms of its effects on monotony vs creativity of work, individual sense of identity, power to act independently, and meaning of life. Public policy should take account of both of these concerns, inequality and job quality.

Instruction of team skills is quickly emerging as an important and missing dimension of engineering education. This project evaluated a new framework for guiding students in providing self- and peer assessments of their effectiveness in teamwork. This framework is the foundation for a new web-based tool that offers students structured feedback from teammates, along with personalized exercises and actionable strategies that guide targeted learning in the areas thereby identified. Specifically, the study documented in this report investigated whether the feedback framework, when used for intra-team self and peer feedback, increased students’ abilities to learn about and improve their team-effectiveness in executing design projects. The framework consisted of 27 competencies across three aspects of team-effectiveness: organizational, relational and communication competencies. The framework was tested in a randomized controlled experiment in a first-year engineering design class of 280 students against an unstructured feedback prompt. Students were asked to provide feedback at the mid-point of the course and to provide their thoughts on the utility of the feedback they received in an end-of-term survey. Student assessments were also compared to teaching assistant assessments.