Defence Business: The 6th ADM Skilling Summit - making the most of the system | ADM Oct 2010
The 6th ADM Skilling Summit was held in Adelaide last month and gathered Defence oriented HR, education and industry professionals to look at how the different parts of the economy can work together to recruit, skill and retain the workforce needed by Defence and Defence Industry.
Katherine Ziesing | Adelaide
To set the scene, skilling in Australia is an enviable position in comparison to some other nations in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).
If anything, Australia has returned more quickly to its pre-GFC condition of skills shortages in specific areas than most international players.
“Australia’s defence industry is not facing the sorts of horrors being felt in both the UK and US,” John O’Callaghan, of Australian Industry Group’s Defence Council said.
“Both those countries have economies which are really struggling, with massive cuts being made to UK government programs because of their huge budget deficit and high level of debt.
“The US similarly, with an unemployment rate stuck close to 10 per cent and a very large budget deficit, is starting to give attention to a Strategic Reform Program (SRP) equivalent, but multiplied.
“This will impact on defence industry in that country, with mounting pressure to close down or reduce naval construction activity and other programs.”
Australia is facing a situation where the projects outlined in the Defence Capability Plan (DCP) will require a national effort to deliver and support the vast array of technologies and capabilities in the pipeline.
Peter Croser of the Defence Systems Innovation Centre (DSIC), a joint venture between the universities of Adelaide and South Australia, showed a slide highlighting the skills challenge facing Australia in just one major project: Sea 1000 – Future Submarine.
Amplified across the industry, and the defence portfolio as a whole, the challenge is immense and under-recognised.
“The healthy Australian economy provides a sound template for addressing the key challenge for Australia’s defence industry, namely: emerging skills shortages,” O’Callaghan said.
“Industry and government will need to work harder together to tackle this challenge.”
John Roddick of Flinders University provided a sobering context, however, when he pointed out that while the defence industry faces massive opportunities over the next 25 years - and, importantly, a less ‘bursty’ and more consistent flow of work – it has also been given enough rope to hang itself.
“If it doesn’t deliver, or it disrupts other industries, then government will look offshore [for its equipment and services],” he warned.
He also provided a sobering take on the competition for available skills within the engineering profession: engineers now have a starting salary above that of doctors, and 75 per cent of business are experiencing professional engineering and ICT shortages, with ‘potentially catastrophic’ effects if this shortage grows.
Oh, and the number of students who applied to do engineering at all three South Australian universities fell last year by 11 per cent a trend which shows no sign of reversing in the near future he posits.
Lessons learned
The overwhelming take home from the conference was the fact that there are numerous local, state and federal programs on offer to help companies and schools support this objective but navigating all these programs can be time consuming and confusing.
While some larger companies have the capacity to spend time and money on the effort, many SMEs are faced with plotting a course without a map.
With this in mind, there were a number of presentations that looked at how best to support companies in finding the best sources of funding and appropriate programs to support their training and skilling efforts.
Tony Quick of Enterprise Connect provided the federal perspective with the services available under the new Defence Industry Innovation Centre (DIIC) as examined by Gregor Ferguson in the September edition of ADM.
Though the DIIC, eligible SMEs are matched with an experienced Business Advisor who works with them to:
• Understand the firm’s strategy and business operations.
• Identify strengths and opportunities, including benchmarking against best practice
• Assess potential areas for growth and improvement.
• Helps firms access world-class business tools, processes and technology
And importantly for the small business world, this is provided at no financial cost to the firm.
Based on the recommendations of the review, DIIC can then help provide funds for approved programs to grow the business.
Enterprise Connect also supports the placement of researchers from universities or public research agencies into businesses where such a placement would help to develop and implement a new idea with commercial potential.
The federal government program can cover funding for up to 50 per cent of salary costs, to a maximum of $50,000, for each placement for between two and 12 months.
The program aims to:
• help break down the cultural divide between business and the research sector (the researcher may be from a university or research agency)
• speed the dissemination of expertise
• accelerate the adoption of new ideas and technologies
• increase competitiveness of firms
There was also the feeling in the room that the higher education sector has moved away from the one size fits all model of degrees and qualifications with universities and training providers working more closely with industry to develop specific courses.
But there is a lot of duplication of services still seen.
Peter Croser of DSIC argued for a pooling arrangement of courses and expertise under a coopetition model where competitors cooperate on some issues but still compete for others.
With this in mind, DSIC is in negotiations with both Queensland University of Technology and the University of NSW at ADFA to begin this talent pool.
He was echoed by Tim Turner of UNSW@ADFA, who stated that education and training providers need a ‘critical mass’ to sustain both technical subject matter expertise and the ability to teach this.
Turner cited a real-world example of collaboration between training providers in the field of marine engineering: UNSW@ADFA offers a Masters in Maritime Systems Engineering (MSysEng); this is supported by specialist courses from the Australian Maritime College in Tasmania (Masters in Marine Engineering) and private sector firm Nova Group which provides some of the specialist systems engineering courses contributing to the MSysEng qualification.
There was also a massive call for defining what value for money means in a training context.
Do you want students trained face-to-face, all in once place?
Are you happy with web tools?
Is there a time restriction?
An informed customer is vital in making an informed choice when choosing a training strategy for either Defence or industry.
School pathways
One of the highlights of the conference was looking at the different offerings from the high school sector in WA and SA.
Through the federally run School Pathways Program, schools in these states are partnering with industry and training organisations to introduce their students to Defence and Industry when students are making career choices.
The program has a particular focus on applied science, maths, engineering and IT subjects and their related industries.
WA schools are leveraging off access to sites and companies at the Australian Marine Complex (Austal, ASC, United Group etc) while SA schools have access to companies at Techport and Technology Park at Mawson Lakes.
While the program aims to help students realise opportunities in Defence, it also upskills teachers, giving them the opportunity to further their own science, maths, engineering and technology (STEM) understanding.
DSTO chief operating officer Dr Len Sciacca in one panel session spoke of a University of New England study that examined who most influences students in deciding what to do with their careers.
“Students tended to listen to older students, siblings, parents, teachers and careers advisors and in that order,” Dr Sciacca said.
Once again, it was brought home to delegates that members of the Defence community, regardless of their role, need to act as ambassadors for their industry, sharing their passion for the job to attract new players of any age.
Do defence skills even exist?
Gregor Ferguson | Sydney and Adelaide
The Head of the DMO’s Maritime Systems Division, Rear Admiral Peter Marshall challenged attendees in his keynote speech by questioning whether there really were many defence-specific skills.
Was it instead the case, he asked, that prime contractors are simply good at winning defence business?
He said in the electronics sector there were very few skills that are unique to Defence: however, sensors and Electronic Warfare (EW) are important, along with the associated signal processing.
Defence is prepared to pay a premium for unique defence skills, he added, but these are increasingly rare.
And the work necessary to sustain some of those skills is dwindling: the Strategic Reform Program (SRP) will strip $1.3 billion in costs from the DMO’s Maritime Systems Division over the next decade, with most of those savings coming from the sustainment area.
To add to the confusion, Marshall said RAN sailors’ technical skills are starting to be upgraded so they can carry out a greater share of the maintenance and repair work in-house.
This reverses some 20 years of defence policy, starting with the old Commercial Support Program and appears on the face of it to add to the stress that industry is likely to feel as it adjusts to a different and likely more straitened defence marketplace.
Many of the speakers who came after RADM Marshall went to some pains to argue that there are indeed defence-unique skills: these are a distinguishing feature of an industry sector which exists largely to support the unique and often very demanding operational and technical requirements of the ADF.
DMO still planning committee structures
All that said, the DMO recognises the role that skills play in sustaining a vibrant and efficient industry base.
Since the publication last year of the Priority Industry Capabilities there has been gradual movement on the supporting policy framework for these, and this year’s Defence Industry Policy Statement stated Defence’s commitment to skilling and other capability support out to 2018-19: $89 million for the SADI program, and a further $49.2 million for the Industry Skilling Enhancement program; and $44.9 million for the Priority Industry Capability (PIC) Innovation Program.
However, the detail and scope of the PIC Innovation Program is still being worked through, according to DMO Industry Division’s director of industry policy and programs, Eddie Ho.
This will likely come under the broader umbrella of the Defence Industry Innovation Board announced in the policy statement, but the structure, scope and duties of the board are also still under development, he said.
The Skilling Australia’s Defence Industry (SADI) program got an explicit endorsement from Peter Croser, DSIC, a former industry CEO as well as Head of DMO’s Industry Division, who stated, “I agree SADI is an important initiative of Dr Gumley, the DMO and Government and should continue beyond 2013/14: it has made a big difference even at the beginning.”
Hear hear.