'Subbies' in demand

During IFSEC I had my ear bent by several people about the severe lack of skilled labour in our industry. This is a recurring theme that has been running with increasing discontent for some time.

One case concerned a senior engineer who, after several years of employment, suddenly told bosses, in no uncertain terms, that he was not prepared to cover night and weekend call outs any more. This left the boss and an apprentice who is not yet sufficiently trained to do the work.

Under normal circumstances he would have been bundled out of the door with his P45 in his hand and told to sod off. In this case the engineer has got away with it for two very good reasons: One, they have no one to replace him and, two, due to the politically correct rules of our current "thou shalt not persecute thy workforce" society they have to give him verbal warnings, then written warnings, then a second chance then they have to endure taking the whole lot to an industrial tribunal with all the resultant lost working time and wages not to mention court costs and legal charges.

Even if the company gets all its ducks in a row and wins the case, it still loses because the poor downtrodden worker that refuses to work has no money to pay. It is not just a case of a no-win situation – it's a downright dead loss. It is cheaper to pay a worker who won't work than to sack him. Profit is a foreign language for some employers in today's politically correct society.

Dingbats and deadlegs
Going back to reason One ... The statement "They have no one to replace him" is not strictly true. There are any amount of dingbats and dead legs who claim to be "engineers" but in actual fact have learned their trade by buying a few bits at B&Q and fitting a system at home.

To the average security company they are as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike. However well intentioned they are, their major skill is "looping out" and hoping no one will notice. They come in two categories – "don't knows" and "don't cares". The don't knows will probably learn in the fullness of time. The don't cares are only waiting to get their hands on a nice works van ... after all, the company vehicle is seen as free transport for a variety of illicit uses.

I have seen sign-written company vans used to carry a mobile disco and doing illicit removal jobs. I've seen company cars used as an airport taxi for a little extra pocket money and, in one case, a sign-written company vehicle being used for car park racing outside a closed supermarket. In return for this they condescend to turn up for work, bodge their way through the day and nick off early enough to get the gear loaded up for whatever job they have on for that night.

Don't get me wrong, I am not biased in any way. We have a lot of damned good engineers out there and a lot of conscientious people who take a pride in their work and it has been my pleasure to meet and to inspect a lot of them. It's just that we have more work than we have skilled workers, and that is a severe shortage we need to meet or our industry is doomed.

The problem is that we seem to be losing the work ethic. I hear of companies visiting the local schools or colleges looking for prospective workers only to find that all the kids want to do is operate the computer. Mention that the job includes night and weekend call outs and they look at you as though you were a leper. Which Prime Minister was it that said "You've never had it so good"? The problem now is that they have had it too good for too long and they are holding the industry to ransom.

I have said in the past that because our industry has taken the easy route of selling cheap instead of selling quality and accepting reduced profit margins, many companies are now finding that there is no money in the pot to train the next generation of engineers. Because of this, most companies are looking to take on trained engineers only and they are in very short supply. The result then is to give power to the worker who will sell his skills to the highest bidder. It is a downward spiral that we have all played our part in and now we reap a very scant and extremely expensive harvest.

On the other hand there is evidence of the wheel turning full cycle in some corners of the industry. For many years now I have seen engineers who have learned their trade and learned it well with a larger company. They then decide to go it alone and set up their own company. The problem is that having good engineering skills is not the same as having good selling skills, so a great many of them are finding that the lucrative volumes of work they observed whilst in employment are not available to them as a self employed small company. The door to insurance and police work has been slammed shut in their faces for a start.

As with any other trade, the public never fully trusts the newcomer so the new and profitable lifestyle they were looking forward to takes a long time to materialise and many of these lads are struggling to make ends meet. They resolve this by turning their hands to a variety of other work to fill in the gaps – not least of this is to sell their labour back to larger companies (very often the same company that they left in the first place) as sub contractors.

The skills, the tools ... but not the work This seems to be a successful way forward for a both parties, the larger company having plenty of work and not enough skilled workers, the self employed individual with the skills and the tools but not enough work. In the past I have helped a lot of these guys to get into the SSAIB and now I am doing the same recruiting job for the NSI Silver scheme ... but times are changing and so is the situation in relation to 'subbies'.

New breed are happy to go out and graft all day for someone else ... and have no night and weekend callouts

Many of the larger companies are finding that using subbies is becoming increasingly attractive, provided they are properly trained, fully screened and familiar with the company's practices. They can be brought in as and when required to fit the workload and the company now only has to keep a reduced regular staff on board to cover servicing and emergency call outs. There are other advantages for the larger company; the subbies provide their own tools and transport so they look after them and costs are greatly reduced. The advantage for the subbies is that they are getting plenty of work to keep them going until they learn to sell their own systems. In fact we even have a new "breed" of subbie that is quite happy to just go out and graft all day for someone else knowing that when he gets home he will have no evening or weekend callouts to contend with.

This could well be a way forward for the industry. In the past I have seen engineers sitting reading newspapers in their vans in quiet corners of country lanes waiting until 5pm arrives. Then, when they go back to HQ they know they are unlikely to be given an extra job to do.

This "waiting time" has become a bone of contention between worker and boss when the boss starts wanting to know why this or that job has taken so long. The reasons and excuses produced in some corners would make an interesting work of fiction. Once an engineer goes self-employed he realises that an extra job means extra cash in the pocket so, instead of avoiding the work, it is grabbed with both hands. It also quickly becomes clear that if a job can be done quickly and done right first time there are no call backs so time is now found to do extra work and get the extra money. In fact, by working quick and right there is a good living to be made.

However, with the tightening up of the ACPO Policy the insistence on proper insurance and proper screening of subcontract companies is becoming keener. Some companies are biting the bullet and screening all their sub contractors and taking out the appropriate insurance. Others are simply passing the problem down to the subbie and telling them to get themselves inspectorate-recognised and inspected in their own right.

Silver rating opens doors
This is where the NSI Silver scheme can help. The vast majority of large companies with more work than employees are the NSI Gold (NACOSS) companies, so it is far easier for them to insist that their sub contractors are NSI (usually NSI Silver) recognised in their own right.

Basically, it means that because an NSI inspector has been and audited the screening of that subbie and found it to be correct, then the NSI holds the evidence that saves the other company duplicating this work. It seems to be working well and opening doors. The other angle on this is that any subcontractor gaining the NSI Silver recognition automatically opens the door to receive work from other larger NSI companies. As I said earlier, it could be the new way forward for our industry.

From another point of view, however, the shortage of engineers may soon be a thing of the past. The current opening up of the European Community to include countries like Czechoslovakia and Poland has opened the door to migrant workers, and the jobs that our home grown young generation turn down offer them a wage that is ten times what they are getting now and a far better standard of living.

Poles apart in attitude
A couple of recent trips to Poland – chasing steam trains – have been a real eye opener to me. The cost of living is very low over there but so are the wages. Yet despite the lower level of lifestyle they are happy, cheerful, always courteous and have an inbuilt desire to work. It seems to boil down to the fact that there is little, if anything, in the line of state benefit. The average Polish child is brought up to understand that no work means no money... so be prepared to earn every penny you get.

I have heard about some of these lads over here already. They come across speaking acceptable English, holding their birth certificates, driving licences and often qualifications as well, and they are prepared to work very hard to create a new life for themselves. They may be the shot in the arm that our industry needs – time will tell.

On the down side, they will have much to learn about our rules and ways with health and safety at work. In Poland they have a much more simplified way of looking at things. I will give you an example ... Poland is dotted with railways crossing the roads, there are very few bridges. These crossings are un-gated and unmanned. When approaching a crossing your only warning is a post with a white cross on it before your teeth are rattled as your car crosses the rails. The rule is simple – the train cannot stop and cannot swerve so if you are hit on the crossing it is your fault for not looking.

  We were allowed to wander at will around railway sheds and depots and no one bothered us. We were invited to ride the cab of full sized steam locos hauling passengers from one town to the next and not one word was said about safety helmets, safety boots or reflective jackets. It was just taken as read that it was all at our own risk.