Vauxhall’s director of human resources is calling on the UK government to “revisit” its approach to apprentice schemes in the context of overall industrial strategy.
Vauxhall was forced to close its apprenticeship scheme at the height of the downturn, but this year has reinstated the programme at its five locations in the UK.
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“The closure of the apprentices programme was one of the many tough decisions we had to take,” HR chief Phil Millward told just-auto. “Many companies were in very difficult financial circumstances and regrettably we closed our apprentice programmes.
“I am happy to say in 2011 we are starting to run again and we will have apprentice schemes in all of the five locations in the UK. The government is right to push the scheme because as we try to rebalance the economy from the public to the private sector, it will be manufacturing that in essence drives this continuous improvement.”
Despite Millward’s welcome for the return of apprentices that will see Vauxhall employ around 40 of them in engineering, technical and commercial spheres from this summer, he called on the government to do more.
“I would like the government to revisit their apprentice funding model,” he said. “Are they helping? I personally think they need to do more, they need to determine what the country’s industrial strategy is. I don’t think that is very clear.
“If the funding model from government was more attractive, then of course we would look at more apprentices. The country is facing a talent vacuum. If we are going to get all those jobs into manufacturing, where are the skills and talents going to come from?”
Millward highlighted the current phenomenon where automakers, after 15 years of “being at the coalface of change” and drastically reducing headcount, were now starting to look inwards to recruit staff as the slow UK upturn kicks in.
“Where we would grow our own, a lot of that has gone away,” he said. “We are in a situation where the automotive sector is starting to poach people from one another.
“It is not only Jaguar Land Rover approaching, or Ford approaching Bentley or us approaching Toyota. You have got Rolls-Royce in Derby which is on a very aggressive hiring campaign. A lot of the big industrial giants are now looking at growth and are equally struggling to find the talent they require.”
Millward called on the British government to deliver more support to a still-struggling industry, adding in his view the “talent pipeline” had gone from healthy to “more or less empty.”
Warming to his theme, Millward noted some of the UK government’s strategies were “designed and engineered in isolation,” rather than having “one big masterplan that is glued together.”
The Vauxhall HR director makes his views known through his influential positions on the Confederation of British Industry’s North West Regional Council and to the automotive group in the UK Parliament, while he is also due to go to the House of Lords to discuss apprentice programmes.
“The acorns are growing in the ground,” he said. “There is a realisation things have got to change and got to change significantly.
“People in government have not necessarily the knowledge and experience to establish the appropriate strategy. I am not being disrespectful to them, because they are very capable people, but I just think the voice of manufacturing needs to heard more.”
