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THE OPEN UNIVERSITY
As Glasgow this week becomes the first Scottish city centre to enforce the low emission zones, the region’s business leaders are demonstrating an increased awareness that staff training can play a pivotal role in helping their business prepare for a Net Zero future.
In a survey conducted by The Open University, 45% of Glasgow small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), confirmed they were considering staff training to enable them to adopt more innovative and sustainable ways of doing things.
This compares to just over a third (36%) of Central Scotland businesses that said the same.
Based on the views of 200 SME business owners and senior managers, the report by Censuswide, also highlighted other key ‘green’ priority training areas for Glasgow SMEs included making their business more sustainable (34%), renewable energy (32%) and technology and innovation (29%).
With 70% of Glasgow-based business owners agreeing that their organisation is experiencing skills shortages, Glaswegian employers were also the most concerned about the impact of skills shortages on the workload of other staff (35% vs Scotland average 30%).
Priority areas facing skills shortages included people management (29%), finance (23%) and digital technologies (23%).
However, awareness in Glasgow about Scottish Government-funded employee training support lagged behind the rest of Scotland, with just 25% having heard of the Flexible Workforce Development Fund (FWDF). The fund, which offers SMEs access to £5,000 of free and flexible online training with the OU in Scotland, is supported by the Scottish Funding Council.
Further to the survey, two thirds of Glasgow-based respondents stated they would now be likely to consider accessing funds in the next 12 months.
David Allen, Senior Partnerships Manager, The Open University in Scotland, said: “Despite seven out of ten of Glasgow-based businesses reporting skill shortages, current financial and economic pressures mean training budgets are often squeezed at the expense of skills development.
"This does not need to be the case. Through the Flexible Workforce Development Fund, SMEs can access fully funded, high quality, online training that addresses many of the core skills shortages, including sustainable and environmental related training.
“That three quarters of Glaswegian SMEs surveyed were unfamiliar with the FWDF, demonstrates there is more work to be done to help raise awareness of available support. It’s positive outcome however to see that two-thirds of business owners surveyed are now likely to investigate Scottish Government-funded training in the next 12 months."
For more information on the OU’s flexible online training and the Flexible Workforce Development Fund, go online at www.open.ac.uk/business/fwdf
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