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There are few trades with such a depressing dearth of fresh young blood as print. The spirit of ambition and the eager enthusiasm provided by bright young starters are vital to the survival of any industry, but with diminishing print orders and dwindling staff numbers, few managers can spare the time to send junior members of staff on training courses, let alone find the money to fund them.

As a result many training providers have pulled out of print and those that still offer courses struggle to fill spaces. The London College of Communication’s gruelling efforts to fill its foundation degree in Print Media Management have been well documented in PrintWeek’s pages, although the university has said it has managed to exceeded its targets for the 2010/11 course.

This year, though, the University of Leeds and Leeds City College of Printing received no intake for their joint degree programme, the BSc in Printing, Packaging and Graphics. After the current students on the course have graduated the degree will be phased out.

John Procter, business manager for digital communications at Leeds City College’s technology campus, the training time- bomb stems from the recent global financial crisis. "The recession has put training on the back burner for many companies. They can see the benefits offered by training their staff but they can’t afford the downtime," he says.

Fewer recruits
Another result of the recession is that employers are often spoilt for choice when it comes to recruiting as there tend to be many more candidates than roles available. So, if it boils down to a choice between an experienced applicant with no training requirements to new recruit with no, or limited, experience, unsurprisingly the former usually secures the job.
"Most of the industry tends to train people when they buy new equipment and is not so good at formal training. I think that the number of training courses out there is a third of what it should be for the amount of people in the industry," says Terry Watts, chief executive of Proskills.

While the picture looks gloomy there are some chinks of light on the horizon. The Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 was introduced to iron out problems in the education system. The new legislation includes the right to request time to train, which gives staff a legal right to request training that will benefit the employee as well as his or her company.

This ‘right’ is currently available to employees in organisations with more than 250 staff, although in April 2011 it will be extended to cover all companies regardless of their size. But although employers are under a legal obligation to consider requests under the new law, they can decline these requests for good business reasons. Nor are companies obliged to pay their staff while they are training, or to cover the cost of the courses – which essentially puts the onus on employees to fund their own training.

"It’s not the right employer/employee relationship. When you start quoting what you are entitled to, it’s the wrong approach," says George Thompson, joint managing director of print recruitment consultancy Harrison Scott Associates.
Paul Gamble, operations manager at Kingfisher Print & Design agrees. "I don’t see the need for legislation that won’t bring any further funding or a drive to train," he says.

Further reforms within the new act enables the Skills Funding Agency to take a demand-led approach to post-19 education. Under the terms of the act, funding will be awarded to training providers on the basis of the students they are able to attract.

The Leitch Review (2006) also suggested that government funding for training should become increasingly demand-led, giving employers and staff more power to choose the training courses that meet their needs, while also obliging training providers to become responsive to learners’ and employers’ requirements.

But the problem with print is that "many employers want the shortest-possible, pared-down training specifically suited to their own operation," says Dani Novick, managing director of print recruitment specialist Mercury Search and Selection. "This is too diverse to be standardised, therefore from a government perspective it can’t be regulated so is unlikely to attract funding."

Mature learners
Mature learners, who make up most of the industry, are also less likely to attract enough funding. "I am always surprised that training providers are inspected inside-out on discrimination and equality of opportunity, yet government funding agencies deem it fair and equitable that they will refuse to offer equitable training funding to mature learners," says Kathy Woodward, executive chairman for BPIF Training.

According to Watts, Proskills and other bodies put in a request for £10m for industry training just before the election. But a positive response looks far from certain amid swingeing cuts in public sector spending. Funding is available for short formal courses and apprenticeships, but it often comes with a responsibility on employers to invest their time and effort in new recruits. As 85% of the industry consists of SMEs, many firms could be unwilling to invest – especially in younger staff, whose value is often limited.

"For skilled roles, while a young person might be 20% cheaper than a skilled 45-year-old finisher, until they are trained, they can’t do as much to contribute to the company," says Kingfisher’s Gamble.

The impact of these decisions will probably be felt hardest in the next couple of decades when the industry’s ageing workforce starts to retire. According to Procter, a good percentage of the industry already has no formal qualifications and the ones that do are retiring or moving into different companies.

"If person A has formal qualifications and person B has come into the company and is trained by person A, he will probably gain 50% of their knowledge and go on to train a new starter who will equally take only 50% of his knowledge," says Procter.
This will leave a workforce with only 25% of the knowledge it potentially needs. With further government funding cuts on the cards, the outlook for the future of education in print looks far from rosy.

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CASE STUDY: KINGFISHER PRINT & DESIGN
Staff 40
Training system Line manager and member of staff identify training needs
Courses BPIF Vision In Print, NVQs and AAT accountancy training
Funding Company budget, government, Train To Gain for AAT

It’s been four years since the company put training on its agenda, and according to Kingfisher operations manager Paul Gamble it has given the company stability. Kingfisher has managed to avoid the redundancies and pay cuts that have affected most companies since the recent financial crisis.

"It has allowed us to grow as a company. In the last two years we’ve increased our staff from 30 to 40 and our total turnover is set to grow from just over £3m last year to £3.6m this year," says Gamble.

The company gives its employees appraisals to identify what they hope to learn from courses and any training that would be relevant in helping the learner grow and develop within the company.

"We would cover the training costs. For example, we’ve just sent people on a studio software training course, which is very expensive for us," says Gamble.

It is the manager’s responsibility to identify whatever training is required with the member of staff, whether it’s in-house technical training or external courses such as offered by the BPIF.

"If someone is away for training then we cover their shift through agency workers and through temporary staff and overtime, in the same way that we would cover holidays," says Gamble.

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CASE STUDY: HOWARD HUNT
Staff 280
Training system Dedicated training manager
Courses IBM Diploma, NVQs, BPIF and short in-house training
Funding Company budget, government Train to Gain

The company commits a budget every year for in-house and external training and has had training on its agenda for the last five years. It was one of the areas identified when the company decided to become Investors in People.

"This can range from IBM diplomas to specific print skills and the cost to the business we get back ten-fold because it’s worth so much more in the future," says Lucy Edwards, assistant managing director at Howard Hunt.

According to Edwards, the printer employs a specific training manager with a budget to run in-house and external courses based around a database that provides feedback from previous trainees. Individual training needs are identified through appraisals and centralised on the database. This has led to an atmosphere of creativity and motivation within the company.

"We dedicate an extra hour a week to develop our process and for staff to generate ideas. Putting these training systems in place has allowed everybody to improve and more skilled workers mean more productivity," says Edwards.