Employability of GEES graduates: the approach of the Environment Agency

Abstract

Abstract The Environment Agency is a major employer of GEES graduates across many areas of environmental protection and improvement. As university courses have changed in recent years, we have adapted our approach to the recruitment and retention of our employees. The quantity of graduates, and particularly postgraduates, has reduced in disciplines such as geoscience. In addition, the quality of the core technical skills of those recruited is ‘worse’ than in the past. Roles where postgraduates were applying now attract graduates that we have to develop ourselves. We have established a series of technical development frameworks to assess our staff capabilities. This has highlighted areas for development and associated programmes of training and mentoring have evolved. We are focussing future workforce plans on the development and retention of critical skills. Professional body endorsement plays an important part in our work. This paper is based on the presentation given at the 2008 GEES Subject Centre Conference, and follows on from the presentation delivered at the GEES conference in 2007 and published in Planet 19 (p 44).