Skills development in the global construction industry

Citation

Sandelands, E. (2009), "Skills development in the global construction industry", Education + Training, Vol. 51 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2009.00451caa.001

Skills development in the global construction industry

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Education + Training, Volume 51, Issue 3

The construction industry around the world feels the impact of global economic conditions possibly more than many other industries. However, whether demand is high or low, depending upon the vagaries of the economic cycle the engineering and technical skills crunch remains a real one, and one that is global in scope. Young people simply are not being attracted in sufficient numbers into engineering. This needs to be addressed and their talent nurtured over the lifetime of their employment.

This special issue of Education + Training has been a pleasure to write and compile for which our heartfelt thanks for this opportunity go to the journal’s editor Rick Holden and publisher Kate Snowden.

Our issue will be a little different from others issues in this and other volumes of the journal. Our focus has been exclusively on practice and in capturing case studies that reflect the challenges facing our industry and the creative solutions that have been crafted and tested in order to address them.

As a publisher Emerald has a fine tradition of bringing reflective practice to academic audiences in order to inform teaching and research, in addition to the perhaps more traditional pipeline that feeds scholarly work to the practitioner. It is a symbiotic relationship and one that we hope this special issue will play a role in further developing.

In “Advanced entry adult apprenticeship training scheme: a case study”, Alan Sparks, Hadyn Ingram and Sunny Phillips examine an Australian initiative from the perspectives of the apprentice, the training provider and the employer concluding that adult apprentices with experience can be more productive and loyal than their younger counterparts.

Mentoring features within many serious corporate learning and developing initiatives but is rarely easy to do well. In “Making mentoring stick: a case study”, Takis Karallis and Eric Sandelands chronicle and analyse a successful mentoring intervention.

“Developing tomorrow’s engineers: a case study in instrument engineering” by Liam McDonnell and Donal O’Neill, among many other findings, highlights the need to promote mathematics and physics in schools if industry is to be well served by sufficient appropriately skilled school leavers. There is an issue of image to address if success is to be achieved.

In “Addressing South Africa’s engineering skills gaps”, Jonathan Hall and Eric Sandelands the particularly challenging skills shortages in South Africa where Murray & Roberts have adopted a multi-faceted, integrated approach to mobilizing and developing the workforce of the future. New infrastructure projects, in particular the massive Medupi and Kusile power station projects have provided opportunities to develop skills that must be grasped.

“From apprentice to construction manager and beyond: developing a talent pipeline” by Eamonn McGettinghan and Donal O’Neill focuses in particular on the transition of apprentices into supervisory and managerial roles, and the support infrastructure in place within Kentz Engineers and Constructors to support them.

The case studies provided are experiential and reflect practices introduced to meet the most challenging of conditions. We hope they will inform future practice and also provide academic colleagues with further insight into the realities of our industry.

Eric SandelandsCorporate Learning Consultants Ltd, Castle Eden, UK