Four pillars – Education and Training The 2021 BFPA strategy review showed clearly that much of the activity of the Association is highly valued by its members. It was felt, however, that a more strategic approach would add an extra impetus to areas that need an uplift. Hence, the four pillars came into focus and are now a major focus for the BFPA and the strategy teams formed to manage them. One of these strategic pillars is tasked with furthering the Association’s education and training regime. I have taken on the responsibility of Team Leader for the group, ably supported by likeminded BFPA members that have a passion for education and training. Soon after the strategy team was formed, we asked members of the BFPA on the topic of education and training what they felt we should stop doing, what we should continue doing and what we should start doing. To gather the information we needed, we conducted surveys among the membership to ascertain what member companies felt should be our main objectives. The surveys addressed 20 main topics and we invited members to rate these out of 10 – 1 being the lowest in priority and 10 being the highest. We decided that when we received the feedback that we would then focus our attention on what would were considered the top three subjects from the members’ point of view. We decided to focus on the top three because it was agreed that this was a manageable number to form realistic action plans around and implement these plans within the strategy group. Student engagement When we received the feedback, we found that the top priority – which gained a score of 89% - was to educate young people. One of the survey questions was ‘how would you rate increasing engagement with young people in industry including schools, colleges and universities?’ The survey findings rated this topic at 9.67 on the scale of 1 to 10. That was the highest achieved rating. With this in mind, our strategy team agreed that the BFPA should create a ‘STEM toolkit’ to be openly available to schools, colleges and universities. It was also suggested that the sale of a STEM toolkit to education providers could generate additional revenue for the BFPA. The second survey question in importance on a scale to 1 to 10 was ‘how would you rate more promotion of BFPA education and training to end-users and its members?’ That achieved 8.89. Following an in-depth discussion, out team decided that this subject was outside of the team’s strategy remit and is already adequately managed by other parties within the Association. The third highest rated question was ‘how would you rate the BFPA to partner with more prominent universities and further education establishments to promote industry?’ This achieved a rating of 8.67. Bath University is currently a member of the BFPA and holds a seat on the BFPA Education and Training committee. However, the team agreed it would be beneficial to members and the BFPA if more relationships could be formed with colleges, universities and higher education providers – even inviting some to become members. Our team reviewed P56 – Engineers Data Book, a BFPA publication that is currently being updated internally by BFPA. We felt this publication could be useful for students or for education providers as training material. The team also reviewed the membership brochure and expressed the opinion that to progress this project the brochure should be updated and made available alongside P56. Main focus So, these survey themes have become our team’s focus around which to form an actionable strategy plan. We therefore came up with a mission statement, namely ‘raising awareness of the fluid power industry to young people’. Everything we decide to do within our strategy team will relate to this end goal. Our team then focused on target groups. The first of these comprised schools, colleges and universities. We also looked at manufacturing and BFPA members because many of our member organisations run apprenticeship Raising awareness and spreading the message 26 www.bfpa.co.uk By Gary Fuller, Industrial Workplace Development Manager, Festo Didactic GB, and Team Leader, the BFPA’s Education and Training strategy pillar. Gary Fuller: Compelling and valuable strategy roadmap.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjQ0NzM=