by Nick Drew | Mon 16 Jul 2018
Operator shortage, a growing concern
Its something a bit different from me today, just a bit of industry comment really and reflecting on an ever changing industry that is struggling to find quality staff. I’m hearing everywhere I go these days, “we just can’t get any good operators at the moment” but what can we do about this situation?
Virtually every jobsite I visit these days has an ageing workforce, this is especially prevalent in the cabs of the machines. Most of these highly skilled operators learnt in the time-honoured way, going to work with their fathers and picking tips up by watching and learning and whenever possible getting hands on with the “sticks” during lunch breaks or after work hours.
Unfortunately, on most mainstream sites, this is no longer an option and has in my humble opinion, in some way caused the decline in skilled operator numbers. Another aspect is the old school guys turning their backs on the once loved industry, simply ground down by the weight of the health and safety burden and the constant changing of the goalposts with regards to the card schemes, not to mention the renewal costs every 5 years, that’s something else I hear a lot from the operators I meet too.
One other example, I was talking to an operator I used to work with recently, he recalled how back in the 60’s and early 70’s the machine operator was highly respected on sites, saving men’s backs and just generally reducing the amount of manual labour that was needed, but now he says we are regarded as the lowest of the low especially by some of the management who seem to run sites these days, often straight out of university with no practical skills at all, not like in the old days when the site agent had started out on the tools and gradually moved up the ranks.
Another foreman I spoke to talked about the problem of people obtaining the required tickets, but then coming on sites technically fully qualified, but not having the experience of how to tackle the jobs, its all a very worrying situation, how are these lads going to hone their skills if they are not given a chance. The other scenario is, as has always been if your face doesn’t fit, but that is a human element that has always been around in all walks of life.
Of course, there are training facilities up and down the country now working hard to produce more operators using a combination of simulators and real machines to train these individuals and they must be congratulated for their efforts.
Its not all doom and gloom though, I have met and know some cracking young operators, especially down here in the Westcountry where I am currently living and I am looking forward to visiting many more over the coming years!
Anyway, I just thought this was a topic worth discussing and it will be interesting to hear what you all think we can do to get more people interested in becoming plant operators in the future and ultimately addressing this skills shortage.