There’s currently a shortage of talent available in the engineering sector here in the UK and it is starting to impact businesses hard. In addition to this, the need for diversification across the workforce has never been more prevalent. 

There are many factors why there’s a shortfall in talent, the most obvious being the fallout from Brexit and a lot of skilled people now having left the UK. We’ve also just come through a Pandemic that has changed people’s opinions on what day-to-day work should be. Many businesses have, or are in the process of shifting to a hybrid or even remote working model and talented individuals from the Engineering Sector are looking to transfer their skills to a different industry in favour of a more flexible working environment.

For every business in every sector, there needs to be more substance behind the recruitment drive. Businesses need to create an ‘employer brand’,  a brand that not only attracts the right kind of people to your business but keeps them there too.

With the talent pool being smaller, it has never been more important for businesses to communicate why the best available talent should want to join them over their competition, or give people that are not currently working in the sector a reason to transfer their skills across. Simply posting job descriptions with a snippet of what it is like to work at company ‘x’ or relying on recruiters to sell the dream job is not enough. The result of not presenting your employer brand to the world will leave you scratching around for the limited talent that is left remaining whilst the best people gravitate towards the businesses that offer a better proposition. We don’t need to explain the affect of what not hiring the right talent can have on a business’s success. 

Don’t run the risk of your role becoming ‘just another job’ in the eyes of the future employee. This will only attract a certain type of individual and will hugely impact staff retention and the wider company culture. Ambitious business leaders need to avoid hiring people in key roles where they are merely looking to earn some extra income and are not driven to help their business grow. You should be looking for people who want to build a career with a company that wants to go places. 

A business has to be able to give people the opportunity for personal growth and job satisfaction and provide a culture that befits the overall business strategy of course. However, there are so many businesses and brands out there that do offer candidates a great place to work but just don’t communicate it anywhere, or what they do communicate is not engaging, so struggle to recruit as a result.

The workplace is changing, people demand more

  • Candidates today want to know what’s in it for them beyond just making money from a 9-5
  • Candidates want to understand the culture, vision, objectives and ambition of a business and the people they’ll be working with, before they entertain applying
  • They want to know what makes company X the right place for them 
  • The Gen Z population is the next generation of candidates, their outlook on the world is very different to the older generations. How do you make the workplace attractive to them. Do you know how they tick?
  • Why should a 30/40+ year old, top 10% skilled Engineer or Service manager pick company A over B?

Frost have developed a framework for delivering EVP’s and employer branding solutions that help CEO’s, HR and in-house recruiters and marketers to attract and retain the ‘right’ talent.

Through research that we have undertaken, we have a thorough understanding of what people (of all ages) in the UK’s engineering sector, in particular, are looking for from their employers. We are able to take this knowledge and help businesses create effective employer brand and recruitment campaigns that will support sustainable growth