GSK chief wants mass support for process skills academy

York, UK – Everyone working in the process industries should become an individual member of the National Skills Academy Process Industries (NSAPI), according to Derek Willison-Parry, vice president, operational excellence, global manufacturing and supply at GlaxoSmithKline.

Such mass support, said Willison-Parry, would enable employers, employeees and training providers to be clear about their future skills and training requirements. Individuals membership is free, he added, and is important for help establish NSAPI as the lead organisation for training and skills in the sector.

“It is imperative that we encourage people to recognise that the national skills academy is the leadership vehicle and that they must be a member of it,"  said the GSK executive. “Employees can then have clarity about how to take control of their own personal development, providers can have clarity about what’s expected of them, gain accreditation and, therefore, be properly tuned in to what employers need, and employers can be clear about what they need."

Corporate membership is another imperative, Willison-Parry continued: “It doesn’t cost an arm and a leg but this is our vehicle for change and how we will start to get to grips with the common problems that exist right throughout this environment."

The GSK chief went on to highlight confusion over the plethora of government initiatives and organisations in the training and skills arena.  Therefore, he said, a key initial task for NSAPI was to prioritise the problems faced by individual organisations, towards delivering a national skills agenda.   

To further emphasise the need for leadership, Willison-Parry said he had had tried but failed to understand how GSK’s own skills agenda was being delivered or how its factories or R&D facilities were providing structured proper training and development programmes. Likewise, he said, GSK had not been very cohesive as the voice of a customer: its many and varied organisations around the world making things difficult for training providers.

"NSAPI is qualified to lead the skills agenda because it is a national organisation that sits in that space between employers, employees, providers, funding organisations and government," Willison-Parry concluded. "But it needs its membership to give it the foundation and credibility to lead improvement in the future."

Please email your views to Process Engineering’s editor: patrick.raleigh@centaur.co.uk