Nelson Croom's Blog

Training: A Future for Young Workers

by Andrew Turner

In today’s market it is becoming increasingly difficult for young people to get their first job.  From personal experience after my Masters, and that of my friends on the course, more often than not applicants for positions receive no response at all rather than an interview. In fact in a recent survey only “23% of employers had recruited a young person to their first job.”  This is a tiny portion of their workforce and leaves many young people unemployed, and often with a student debt hanging over them.

Employers seem to have the opinion that the lack of job experience prevents young people from being work-ready.  Yet this prejudice is preventing young people from gaining this experience, and more so forcing them to take unpaid work placements in an attempt to break in to industry.  In this instance employers are not only breaking the law; according to Balanced Accounting “Unpaid internships are actually illegal - even if both parties consider the arrangement to be voluntary, national minimum wage rules apply”, but are also exploiting the young workforce by exchanging their work for CV’s which are full of 2 to 4 weeks at various different companies.  Whilst this shows the commitment of the candidate when they apply for a job, if every candidate has this how can it work as a differential?  Plus, how much on the job experience can truly be gained from these roles?  For obvious reasons often no real responsibilities are given and much of the work is menial.  Due to this the experience is far removed from actual work, the pressures of deadlines and the experience of working as an equal member of a team.

Having just started here at Nelson Croom, in my first role since completion of my Masters, I am lucky that I have found a company who were willing to give a young candidate a chance.  Many of my friends are not so lucky and are struggling to find more than placements which cover their travel expenses.  Not only is it discouraging and scary for them but it is a strong contrast to statistics released this week that “84% of employers recruiting new graduates found them to be well prepared.”

With this statistic in mind I can’t help but think that employers should take the chance and offer on the job learning to help develop young professionals.  More and more jobs are demanding some form of CPD and are benefitting from it.  Perhaps if it was accepted across the board as something used to continually cultivate new and existing talent then employers wouldn’t see young people as such a risk.  Rather they would be seen as people who it would be possible to achieve the maximum output from, for a longer period of time.  It is not only young staff who benefit from CPD, but perhaps it can be used to extinguish the uneasiness many seem to associate with employing people to their first position.

The end of University as we know it?

by Andrew Turner

I’ve spent 4 of the past 5 years in higher education and I’m a real advocate, so you can imagine how dismayed I was to read in The Guardian that universities are “Full” and will “turn away record number of students”.  This shortage of places is before clearing has even opened and means that many people will be disappointed and miss out on the University experience. 

However Bill Gates may have the answer. Unsurprisingly it is in technology that the Microsoft mogul see’s the saviour of higher education, but despite his bias the option does seem viable.  By moving more material online and offering it through e-learning more students can access course material and Universities can become more flexible.   He’s billing it as a way of reducing university bills – a big issue in the US also, but it could also increase the number of university places. For Bill Gates, “College, except for the parties, needs to be less place-based”. This may be true but we’re really going to need to work on the parties’ angle.

Disruptive technology that benefits everyone

by Alan Nelson

I read with interest last week that in the US sales of ebooks on Amazon have outstripped those of hardbacks, with the online retailer now selling 180 ebooks for every 100 hardbacks. This scares the hell out of publishers who have never been good at reacting positively to new innovations.

What is today termed disruptive technology has echoes in the past. The reaction 75 years ago to Penguin releasing the first paperbacks was equally hostile. So it’s appropriate that the Penguin boss, John Makinson, should be one the few publishing luminaries who is reacting positively.

Ebooks have been around for a while but the success of the Kindle reader has led to take off. The new iPad, with its superior ibooks app looks set to be an even greater catalyst.

In our world of online professional development, there are parallels too. Many of our clients and partners are concerned about the impact of online courses on existing face to face provision. Will people still come? I have to admit that I am never very sympathetic for two reasons:

1. I don’t really care much - in the end people will get what they want. If they find it more convenient to study for qualifications and stay up to date once qualified, by engaging with well prepared online material then that is what should be provided.
2. It doesn’t happen – our experience is that attendance at face to face events is not affected at all by online provision. Those that enjoy physical events where they can meet and interact with their peers, continue to attend, but others, who never went in the first place, start to engage online. Overall participation goes up.

So I was interested to read the detail of the story about Amazon sales of ebooks. Have they cannibalised sales of hardbacks? Is it the end for printed novels. No - far from it. Sale of hardbacks in the US – where these statistic comes from – are up 22%.

Going to Dublin

by Rachel Bruce

I was in Dublin last month to meet with two of our partners, CPA Ireland and Accounting Technicians Ireland.  As I arrived at their beautiful Georgian building, close to St Stephen’s Green, CPA Ireland was providing face-to-face training to a group of Lithuanian auditors.  I was interested to find out how this was going as it is a new initiative for CPA Ireland.  During one of the breaks, I was shown into the bright and airy training room and was introduced to John McCarthy, the presenter, who also happens to be one of our new authors that I hadn’t yet put a face to, who said that the training was going well.

I wondered how the language barrier was being overcome.  CPA Ireland showed me that each delegate has a copy of the PowerPoint slides, each copy with an English version and a Lithuanian version side by side.  In addition to this each delegate has a headset. In a separate room, while John McCarthy was presenting, two interpreters were translating the presentation which each delegate could then pick up via their headsets.  It was really interesting to see this set up, and how well it was working and being received by the delegates. 

The main reason for blogging about this though is that it reaffirmed something I have always believed throughout my working life: that even though new technologies are moving on apace, and facilitate amazing things in terms of building ‘virtual’ relationships, there is still a place for meeting people face to face.  My reason for meeting with CPA Ireland was to talk to them about the development of their online portfolio of courses from our Accounting and Finance portfolio, not to find out about their training of Lithuanian auditors.  However, in the process of meeting with them, on their turf, I found out and saw for myself one of their new initiatives in action.  This has helped to further my understanding about how our partner, CPA Ireland operates, which only serves to strengthen the bond that we have.