Dedicated initiatives like National Careers Week are vital in today’s complex landscape of education, training and employment. After all, what better time to highlight why lifelong learning is so critical and why, most importantly, it should be accessible to all?
It’s also a chance to promote specific roles and opportunities across sectors. This year’s National Careers Week will become a platform to help individuals source the information they need to make informed decisions about their future, showcasing a range of career options and offering tailored advice from industry professionals.
Forging new paths
As an employer, the onus is on us to empower people of all ages, backgrounds, mindsets and skill sets to pursue their passions. Enterprises looking to find that competitive edge must be prepared to hire from a number of different generations and experiences – each with their own unique perspectives and strengths – and cater for all types of learners, including neurodivergent talent.
As part of this, promoting alternative education pathways into STEM is becoming increasingly important. People are truly an organisation’s greatest asset and we’re big believers in encouraging people from all walks of life. This should involve embracing people from completely different careers and those that have had diverse routes into tech.
This is what provides all-important diversity of thought, bringing a wider range of skills into the business. It can help to plug the industry skills gap – our research found that 97% of decision makers in critical industries admit a shortage of talent is hindering their ability to gain a digital advantage – while giving opportunities to people who may already have diverse life experiences and prior careers that provide unique perspectives.
That’s why our message to prospective employees who want to flip their career is that we’re here to help you do that. We’ll give you new skills and experiences as part of a rich, diverse culture. Remember, you don’t need to have a technical background to thrive in exciting and dynamic STEM fields. It’s all about helping people to bring their passions to life and succeed in their chosen careers – no matter which route they have taken to get there.
Empowering learning
The other piece of the puzzle is offering lifelong learning opportunities, enabling employees to continually improve their skills and knowledge – and even have a range of careers within a business itself. This is key for any enterprise looking to attract and retain top talent.
Career development can’t be ‘set and forget’. It must be continuously nurtured and given the attention it deserves. If we take care of our employees, they in turn will take care of us and our customers. That’s why we have various learning platforms and partnerships with key educational institutions to make it easy for employees to develop new skills in a flexible way.
This includes offering on-the-job training, mentoring and coaching, and bootcamps to reach individuals at all stages of their careers – in addition to apprenticeships and graduate schemes. This will help them keep up with the pace of change and remain ‘digitally evergreen’.
Here’s a snapshot of some of the programmes we’re currently running:
- Code First Girls: We are working with CodeFirstGirls to provide a 16-week levelling up programme for women who want to learn more about data, software or full-stack. And it’s already paying dividends. We recruited 15 women into our Manchester and Gloucester offices in 2022, with plans to hire a further 13 graduates following this year’s CFG Full-stack Nano Degree.
- National Security Academy: An initiative designed to help individuals gain the confidence and technical ability needed to pursue careers in STEM, which we’ve been running with our training partner QA since 2016. The programme consists of a 12-14 week software engineering bootcamp covering areas such as API development, Linux and Kubernetes. So far, we’ve trained more than 350 people, recruiting 20 junior software engineers from two cohorts in 2022 with plans to recruit a further 30 in 2023. For more information see here.
- National Security Cyber Accelerator: A programme designed for people who have some experience in software development and want to take their first step into the world of national security. We’re looking for people who want to make a difference and are driven by learning new things. For more information see here
These are in addition to our own graduates and apprenticeship programmes. The latter ranks 9th according to the Department for Education’s Top 100 Apprenticeship Employers list and has seen a 90%+ success rate in terms of hires. We’re proud to offer a wide range of apprenticeship programmes as well as our skills accelerator programmes targeted towards experienced hires, all of which forms part of the £90m+ investment in education and skills across the wider BAE Systems business.
Not standing still
Here at BAE Systems Digital Intelligence, we’re constantly reflecting on our learning strategies. We recognise that helping our people grow their talents requires us to not only cater for all different types of learners, but also adapt in line with the industry as things like technical skill requirements evolve.
That’s why we’re currently investing in improving our HR and training software to deliver the support employees need, and help them identify their next opportunities in a more digitally enabled manner. We’re also looking to expand our online training catalogue and supplement this with more physical training spaces to help keep employees engaged.
Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that everyone in the business – from awareness up to expert level and across all our domains – has their own programme for skill development. This, we believe, will enable us to foster a mentality of continuous improvement through lifelong learning and empower our workforce to take control of their career development.
