Meet the Skills Team: Lizzie Lyons

Lizzie Lyons is Head of Skills Delivery at Business West, managing a team of Business Skills Advisors working on a number of Workforce for the Future projects. We caught up with Lizzie to find out more about her day job and how she supports both companies and young people to succeed. 

Lizzie, tell us a bit about yourself; your role as Head of Skills Delivery and your career background?

I started my career in the tourism and hospitality industry and soon became interested in skills and training. I first started supporting businesses with their skills challenges at the Tourism Skills Network South West, delivering funded support projects across the West of England. I subsequently joined the West of England Local Enterprise partnership where, as Employability and Skills Co-ordinator, I began working with a variety of sectors that were involved in the regeneration of the Enterprise Zones and areas within the region. This role gave a great insight into the economic development of the region and inward investment and how people and the regions workforce are an integral part of that. 

Shortly after working at West of England Local Enterprise Partnership, the team were brought into Business West where I worked as Business Skills Advisor. In this role I worked with a variety of sectors from retail and food economy, to professional services and construction. Having worked on skills support projects over several years I became very interested in developing projects, and having been involved in the design and subsequent bid writing process for a number of projects. I recently became Head of Skills Delivery. 

The role involves managing a team of Business Skills Advisors, managing public sector contracts and scoping for future projects that respond to the skills needs of business.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

The variety and the people. We have a fantastic team delivering support across all projects and seeing the value that this is bringing businesses is great. Every day is very different in this role, aside of the regular things you have to do when managing contracts such as budget forecasts, performance monitoring and reports etc, there’s also always something new to learn. I enjoy finding out about the different businesses we are working with and helping the team to find solutions to their skills challenges. I also enjoy analysing and challenging systems, initiative and processes to ensure that business needs are heard and solutions are relevant to enable future growth.

What are the most challenging aspects of the job?

There’s a lot of plates to spin with skills because of changes in policy. Skills and education are really affected by central government and the policy can change quite rapidly. It’s really important that as a team we are aware of what is often quite a complex system and are able to help demystify this for businesses. Future planning is also quite challenging, scoping and looking at future funding, to identifying how it can be used to maximise the benefit to business and the community.

What help and skills support are your team able to offer businesses as part of your role?

At the moment we have a fully funded programme in the West of England called Workforce for the Future. So, if any businesses in this region need support or help with their workforce development, planning, or even just looking at where they are with their business plan, that’s the sort of support we can give them. 

Our aim is to create a learning culture within the business, so everyone is using their skills and competencies to the best of their ability. We also encourage businesses to open their doors to learners and open their eyes to new ways of recruiting and engaging in their future workforce. So, we’re there to both challenge and support businesses. 

Why should employers be interested in workforce development planning?

There are a couple of key reasons. 

There is a lot of competition out there right now, every sector in the region has reported recruitment challenges to some extent. There are a number of sectors where this is more of a challenge and the terms ‘skills crisis’ is being used. The COVID-19 pandemic created a change in work practices and also the motivation and behaviours of the workforce. There’s a need more than ever to make sure businesses know how to make their company attractive to ensure a healthy recruitment pipeline and to ensure they are reaching out to potential future employees through engagement with young people in education.   

Ongoing technological advances, digitalisation and decarbonisation also mean that many industries are going to see a vast change in work and the roles within their businesses. Our programme can help businesses to identify not just their current skills needs but also their future needs and look at how they might retrain staff through upskilling whilst supporting them to improve their company culture.  With many businesses having to think about pivoting or revaluating their business proposition – ensuring a solid and resilient workforce is crucial to future success. 

About Workforce for the Future

Business West is delivering Workforce for the Future in collaboration with other partners and the West of England Combined Authority.

For more information on Workforce for the Future, please visit the West of England Growth Hub. The Growth Hub is the West of England Combined Authority’s dedicated business support service which offers free, one-to-one advice and guidance for SMEs.

The West of England Workforce for the Future programme has received £4m of funding from the European Social Fund as part of the 2014-2020 European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme in England. The Department for Work and Pensions (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for the England European Social Fund programme. Established by the European Union, the European Social Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support skills development, employment and job creation, social inclusion and local community regenerations. For more information visit: https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.