Chan, P W and Moehler, R (2007) Developing a 'road-map' to facilitate employers' role in engaging with the skills development agenda. In: Boyd, D (ed.) Proceedings of 23rd Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2007, Belfast, UK.
Abstract
The UK construction skills shortage problem remains highly topical. Despite academic research and industrial efforts to mitigate the problem, construction employers face increasing pressure to get the skilled workforce necessary to fulfil rising workloads in the UK. There is limited success in the recruitment of non-traditional labour, shift towards prefabrication and the employment of migrant labour. Following the Leitch (2006) report, employers will be expected to become more proactive in engaging with the skills development agenda in the future. Yet, the extant literature remains fairly opaque on how employers can achieve this effectively. The research project outlined in this paper attempts to examine the processes involved in engaging employers in the skills development agenda, with a view to develop a decision-support tool (a 'road-map') for employers in this respect. The proposed research approach is outlined in this paper, which includes mapping out of current policies and initiatives that are geared towards construction skills development, case studies to explore how employers are presently engaging in skills development and action research to test the prototype tool.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | decision support; employer engagement; skills development; training |
| Index terms: | mapping, recruitment, workload, employment, action research, decision support, face, case study, prototype, migrant labour, prefabrication, skills development |
| Subjects: | modelling and simulation, psychology, decision analysis, building construction, spatial and geospatial analysis, demography, data collection methods, personnel development, management |
| Topics: | Risk Management, Organizational Design, Urban Studies, Engineering Principles, Research Practice, Human Resources, Construction Technology |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here