Opinion

Why we need to inspire the next generation

23-Jan-2019 - Last updated on 23-Jan-2019 at 14:27 GMT

Mallinson: More work needs to be done to inspire the next generation of food and drink sector staff

David Mallinson, engineering director at Lorien Engineering Solutions, has called on the food and drink industry to inspire the next generation of workers.

The next generation of workers is turning its back on a career in manufacturing, if a new report from Barclays is anything to go by.

According to the report, only 6% of Generation Z (16- to 23-year-olds) were considering a career in the sector. The figure is even worse for females, with only 3% of young women contemplating a manufacturing career, compared with 9% of young men.

Skills challenge

As an engineering design and project management business working with some of the UK’s top food and drink manufacturers, Lorien Engineering Solutions aims to meet the skills challenge head-on.

Our graduate scheme identifies emerging talent and provides young engineers with a platform to learn and develop on the job. This influx of new talent plays an important part in the ongoing growth of our business, but also provides an injection of fresh thinking into the industry.

If we are to turn around the alarming figures in the Barclays study, we need to inspire schoolchildren to think about the diverse career paths available in manufacturing and engineering. It’s not all greasy spanners and dirty factories – we need to showcase the innovation and technology.

Sparking curiosity

Our engineers encourage the next generation by visiting schools to take part in lessons and careers evenings. We aim to tap into young people’s curiosity and paint a picture of what modern engineers look like.

Lorien has just launched the latest round of its growing graduate recruitment scheme, which has been extended to all disciplines, including civil and structural. You don’t have to be fresh out of university to apply.

Our aim is to attract the best candidates and give them the experience and skills to flourish. Together, we can inspire more young people to follow this path.

1 comment

Too Hard

Posted by David, 23 January 2019 - 23:22 GMT

Unfortunately due to the shortage of skilled workers in our industry (meat industry) we have had a huge influx of unskilled senior management, which where nick named seat warmers, who made very unpractical decisions in the work environment, as they where not accustomed to the industry nor did invest in a qualification in the industry, so for them it was picking the lowest hanging fruit good money for no skills , due to this highly qualified people and new starters figured the industry was just too hard, and start to diversify themselves into other industries . The result, no skills heaps of seat warmers.

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