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Productive Skills for Process Operatives

Giles L, Kodz J, Evans C
Report 336, Institute for Employment Studies, August 1997

commissioned by the Department for Education and Employment

This study has identified considerable changes in the chemical and food and drink processing industries in recent years. The nature of the traditional process operative’s job, and the skills required, are slowly being transformed as processing organisations respond to economic and business pressures. Broadly, in flatter organisations, employers are wanting fewer processing workers to do more, and develop a wider range of skills. However, this research has shown it can only be achieved with the right resourcing, training and development solutions.

What are process operatives?

Process operatives in the chemical, and food and drink industries are essentially involved in running processing equipment, either manually or through computerised process controls. Recently, the role of process operatives has been changing.

Drivers of change

With a rise in competitive pressures organisations have begun modifying their practices. A variety of organisational responses have been adopted which have transformed processing work. These include:

• the introduction of technology
• the implementation of new approaches to working
• organisational restructuring
• the establishment of new corporate cultures and approaches to business.

A changing role

These ‘change drivers’ have given rise to a number of developments in the process operative’s role:

• The introduction of computer technology has meant that operatives are less involved in the manual operative tasks and are required to have a greater understanding of the processes. Many of the lower skilled manual operating jobs are disappearing.
• Boundaries between process operations and engineering maintenance are blurring. Process operatives, particularly in the chemical industry, are gradually conducting simple and routine engineering tasks. Multiskilling exercises and job rotation have been introduced.
• The removal of layers of management has led to the devolvement of responsibilities. Process operatives are becoming more involved in decisions, for example about the quality of products, hygiene, processes and packaging.
• Operatives are increasingly required to become more customer and business oriented.
• The 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s saw significant job losses in the chemical, and food and drink industries. Fewer operatives are generally doing more. Although this downward trend may be levelling off, technological and business innovations are likely to lead to further reductions in operative staffing requirements.

Essential processing skills

The range of skills required by process operatives is broadening. Not all process operatives require all the same skills to the same level, but the main skills and abilities can be broadly summarised as:

• Basic skills: literacy and numeracy.
• Other key skills: IT skills; communication skills; team working and interpersonal skills.
• Occupation specific skills: technical understanding; engineering skills; problem solving; analytical skills; maintaining standards; administration and management, and business awareness.
• Personal skills: personal hygiene; flexibility; an ability and willingness to learn; maturity; a positive attitude to work; physical fitness and manual dexterity.

Indicators and measures of skill

In response to the changes in the level and range of skills required of process operatives, employers are modifying recruitment processes and selection criteria. Employers are:

• using a greater variety of more sophisticated recruitment and selection techniques, such as an array of tests, interviews and trial periods
• more closely specifying the minimum skill requirements including: some academic and vocational qualifications, personal skills, and practical and mechanical skills and experience.

Skills gaps, recruitment difficulties

As recruitment tended to be low amongst many of the processing organisations we studied, recruitment difficulties were not abundant and/or causing major problems. Most recruitment difficulties that did exist seemed to be experienced by the food and drink processing industries. These related to quite specific problems relating to the past ‘image’ of the industry.

Some existing workforce skills gaps were causing fairly significant problems. Three types of skills gaps were identified. These primarily related to attitudes, and personal and technical skills.

Training operatives for the future

Many processing employers have started to modify and develop the training of operatives. This has included training in teamworking and group dynamics, decision making and problem solving, quality and customer awareness, new technological and IT skills, communication, and engineering maintenance and instrumentation.

Employers are questioning the sufficiency of initial training and placing more emphasis on continuous learning and development. This enables employees to update their processing skills more frequently. In association with this, employers are targeting training more closely to fulfil actual needs, instead of taking a blanket approach and applying all training to everyone, as in the past. Employees themselves are also increasingly being required to take an active interest in learning and to assume more responsibility for enhancing their own personal development.

The future?

Employers are encountering a number of challenges when reforming their organisational practices, structures and ways of working. These are inhibiting the required changes in processing work and the uptake of skills. They relate to:

• the existence of skills gaps, and recruitment difficulties
• restrictions on the extent of technological advancement and training and development
• the prevailing management team and management approach
• the internal organisational structure and balance of employee skills
• a lack of clarity in the organisational approach to change and management practices.

To override these problems in the future, employers feel they need to develop cultural change programmes; modify recruitment and selection processes; and introduce structured approaches to training and development.

The study

The Department for Education and Employment commissioned the Institute for Employment Studies to conduct a programme of work exploring the nature of employers’ skill requirements, and how these are changing, within eight key occupations. This report presents the findings of a study on the changing nature of skill requirements for process operatives in the food and drink, and chemical industries.

The study included: a review of existing literature; a preliminary stage of seven exploratory interviews with key contacts within processing work; 20 interviews with employers; and a forum at which the provisional research findings were discussed with participants in the study.

Productive Skills for Process Operatives, Giles L, Kodz J, Evans C. Report 336, Institute for Employment Studies, 1997.
ISBN: 978-1-85184-264-3. £19.95. [PDF price: £8.00]

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