Growth Ambitions
3. How we will… develop and enable our people through upskilling, training, and a focus on wellbeing.
“To meet the challenges of the future, we must put our people at the heart of our work and the heart of our strategy, ensuring we have enough of them to carry out critical supply chain functions and that they have the correct training and skills to undertake their work safely and happily”
We will achieve this through the following Key Focus Areas
(click each focus area to find out more)
The Scottish beef supply chain is managed by a wide range of people, many in remote rural communities, who are highly skilled and dedicated to maintaining the integrity and quality of our product.
However, the combination of an ageing workforce, the UK’s departure from the EU, the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the misconception that agriculture – in particular, the beef sector – is low tech, low skilled, low paid and slow moving, means the entire supply chain, from farms to the food service sector, is experiencing a critical shortage of skilled labour.
To address these issues, and to prosper through to 2030 and beyond, the sector needs to attract people with progressive mindsets and ensure that structured skills progression is available throughout the supply chain.
From a farming perspective, it is essential to adopt research, technology and innovation so that beef farmers, crofters and producers have the confidence and skills to maximise the efficiency and productivity of their holdings and to encourage and develop their workforce.
While the challenges faced by the processing and retail sectors when it comes to attracting and retaining staff have been significantly affected by pandemic, the UK leaving the EU and the war in Ukraine, innovation, automation and developing clear career paths will help to create a vibrant and progressive beef sector that new and young people want to join.
Through the industry-wide consultation that ran in the spring of 2021, industry comments around where they see the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) are summarised below:
Strengths
- The Scottish beef sector workforce is passionate, resilient and dedicated, with technical skills and a wide knowledge of the industry.
- Scotland has several academic institutions and vocational skills providers who offer a wide range of courses related to the beef sector.
- Scotland has a wealth of world-leading research institutes and their work can advise on the changes required in the beef sector and how these can be achieved.
- Knowledge transfer experts and peer learning groups within the beef sector are successful in delivering improved efficiency and sharing best practice.
- IAAS offers professional qualifications in livestock auctioneering, management, welfare and legalities through an accredited course at a major UK rural university.
Opportunities
- Enhance the provision and promote the benefits of work-based learning and vocational training within the beef sector.
- Promote the beef sector as a positive career destination to young people, career influencers and career changers.
- Promote personal development of the beef sector workforce through knowledge transfer and continued personal development (CPD).
- Develop a resilient beef sector workforce which is fit for the future and able to adapt to change.
- Highlight the quality, provenance and traceability of beef produced in Scotland to chefs in the hospitality sector.
- Deliver educational resources and teacher training opportunities to ensure Scottish beef production is included in cross-curriculum learning.
- Create opportunities for new roles in the allied sectors with further investment in technology.
Weaknesses
- Staff shortages, particularly within secondary production and haulage due to the UK’s departure from the EU and the reduced number of migrant workers.
- Some people within the beef sector are resistant to change.
- Low profitability, negative media coverage about meat production, increased anti-meat activism, lone working, staff shortages, increasing pressures and more extreme weather have all had a negative impact on the mental wellbeing of people working within the beef sector.
- Barriers such as dyslexia, poor connectivity and technophobia can prevent skills development and can create day-to-day challenges within the Scottish beef sector.
- The range of opportunities within the beef sector is poorly promoted at secondary school level and there is a common misconception that it is an inferior career choice.
- There continues to be a high number of injuries and fatalities within the agricultural workforce.
- Limited cross-curricular coverage of farming and food production within the education system.
- Reduction in skilled consultants delivering farm advice.
Threats
- Throughout the beef sector, the increasing average age of the workforce highlights uncertainty about future labour levels.
- A lack of workers could threaten the flow of goods within the supply chain and could also affect the viability of some businesses.
- The lack of new entrants to the industry and workforce movement to other industries risks a skills shortage in the beef sector.
- Tertiary education providers do not always provide training that remains relevant to the modern red meat industry.
- The lack of financial support to provide the training required results in a skills or labour deficit.
- Volatility of the market, changes in policy and financial support and global emergencies may all have a negative impact on the beef sector workforce.
- The lack of adaptability to change or to adopt new strategies and technologies may result in businesses becoming unviable.
- There is a lack of awareness about the entry and career progression pathway opportunities within the industry.
- Continually increasing cost bases and wage inflation compared to relative incomes makes more businesses unviable.
To meet the challenges of the future, we must put our people at the heart of our work and the heart of our strategy, ensuring we have enough of them to carry out critical supply chain functions and that they have the correct training and skills to undertake their work safely and happily.
The events of 2021 have highlighted that, regardless of how good the product is, without people, the supply chain stops.
The UK leaving the EU and the Covid pandemic have placed extreme pressure on businesses, with recruitment from abroad now more difficult.
There has also been a swell in employment opportunities within the Scottish economy, meaning workers are moving between sectors to seek better pay or working arrangements. No link in the Scottish beef supply chain has been untouched by this skills shortage.
Therefore, our first focus area must be career development and prioritising the development of well communicated pathways into and through the sector, making it as easy as possible for people to choose the red meat sector as their career destination of choice.
Economic multipliers produced by the Scottish Government highlight how valuable meat processing is to the Scottish economy, with Type II multipliers for output, income, employment and gross value added (GVA) all ranked between 3 and 8 out of Scotland’s 98 industrial sectors15.