CEO Anthony Harmer discusses the reskilling & retraining revolution with techUK

On Friday 31^st July 2020, ELATT’s CEO Anthony Harmer participated in a techUK podcast focussed on reskilling & retraining, also featuring Jacqueline de Rojas, President of techUK, Gillian Keegan, the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, techUK's Associate Director of Policy Vinous Ali and Sheila Flavell, Chief Operating Officer at FDM Group.

Gillian Keegan, Chichester MP and Minister for Apprenticeships & Skills at DfE discusses the DfE’s ‘Skills Toolkit’ initiative, created to share free courses where people can improve their digital skills and therefore employability, accelerating their digital journey. It provides ways to retrain and learn skills needed for the 21^st century and the jobs of the future. The launch of the Skills Toolkit was accelerated by the Coronavirus lockdown to ensure people could use their time wisely during lockdown to learn new skills and improve their appeal to prospective employers.

“Businesses with low level of digital skills capabilities are going to be left behind in this highly competitive environment” shares Sheila Flavell, COO of FDM Group. “Now is the time for organisations like us to come to the forefront and signpost where individuals can go to improve their tech skills”.

Anthony Harmer, CEO of ELATT, shares ELATT’s mission statement, “to provide people with the digital and employability skills they need in life and work”. He also shared our strong focus on 1 to 1 pastoral, welfare and educational support, as well as the challenges of adapting to the sudden transformation caused by COVID-19; from only 10% blended courses to fully virtual and online.

Post pandemic, Anthony believes we will see a far greater focus and importance placed on digital in the business sector and in education, thanks to the greater certainty offered by the digital realm, given it is less affected by circumstances like local lockdowns. ELATT has seen an increased uptake in digital skills and office skills courses –  people understand that skills transformation is going to be very important in near future. Anthony also participated in the Government’s Digital Skills Qualifications steering group and believes now is a great time to implement the recommendations made.