What's bothering me? - Grey matter transplants

In the United Kingdom, the expression " grey pound " is used in the context of marketing and or retail sources and refers to the purchasing power of elderly people as consumers. We also use (I think) fairly universally the term 'grey matter' to describe the brain. Possibly due to its colour but I would like to redefine it as the knowledge and skills of the more mature workforce.

We hear and read extensive calls about Skills Shortages across all industry sectors, we also read about the so called snowflake generation who apparently don't want to 'work'. Many of you know that over the past year I have been Going Solo and looking for alternative ways of earning a crust. I am of course extremely fortunate (and grateful) in being able to earn a crust whilst enjoying sharing my knowledge with an enlightened employer. My look-back has been

1. There are 'skills' available, organisations just don't know how to source, create, maintain or apply them in the current business environment. See below for Trade shortages
2. 'Snowflakes' are not a generational thing they are a societal plague.
3. Going solo actually means 'I am a full time contractor' because that is what organisations generally want-to be able to see and have on call people on demand.

The first thing is that the working environment has changed, the workforce does not want to work in the factory or field 6 days a week and go to church on Sunday. Employers in turn do not want to provide housing for the life of the worker, whilst providing health and social care and facilities. We now live in a technical world of remote, temporary employment with multiple employers. This has accelerated over the past few, COVID, years, with employer practices lagging behind the employee needs. However, there is also a lack of training of younger people in basic tacit skills (base trades). That is, basic construction skills are not being generated (see my article in March 2024 ).

The nature of work has shifted from full time on demand to remote temporary employment, leveraging skills now is about planning ahead and using technology.

The reason for this is the law of least resistance, or rather the 'snowflake' syndrome. That is, if something is difficult leave it and kick the can down the road. The 'bother' is, are these practices, controls to prevent threats to the organisation or to make jobs easier. in the supply chain.

In the UK, the use of AVL (Approved vendor list), employment (HMRC) tax laws along with the use of pre-approval entities such as FPAL, Achilles etc has effectively killed off single person contributions to industrial growth.

Finally the problem and what's bothering me is that employers seem to be hanging onto Transactional Behaviour . That is, payment for turning up and being available, what has struck me is that my own situation is very similar to the generation that 'doesn't want to work'. This of course is far from the reality which is more about maintaining the status quo because 'that's how it works'.

It is not the individuals willingness to apply knowledge skills that is the problem it is the inability of the organisation to modify the current practices.

Maybe then it is time to start thinking about adjusting business practices in the energy industries to better accommodate very short term grey matter transplants.

1. Plan ahead, understand the future work load and the knowledge and skills needed for the activities. Make temporary onboarding as simple and efficient as possible, front end load the work. Avoid complex contracts as they can't be enforced and are only there for the lawyers. Have multiple resource contracts, not all your resources will be under a single 'agent'. Treat supply chain as a service. Make it easy to find and deploy resources. Leverage processes.
2. Create a technical expert network and inventories of competence both inside and outside the organisation. Focus on skills transfer , in particular use coaching, mentoring, learning for your grey matter resources. Leverage people
3. Maximise the use of technology by creating knowledge networks and get ready for maximising data puddles and LLM technology. Share knowledge, use corporate story telling. Leverage Technology

So what?

Enlightened employers, the organisations that will survive the next industrial revolution, have optimised transactional business and gone for 'value' by investing in staff , nurturing supply chains and technical expert networks along with embracing technology .

Some of you may be thinking why have I now started working part time staff with a large multinational? I think you need to go back and read the article again :-) Clue: Its all about adding value through knowledge sharing.

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