Scottish Sea Farms
Developing close bonds with the communities they operate in has always been a strength of food and drink firms – but Scottish Sea Farms sees the sector-focused STEM Ambassador scheme as a powerful tool to make those ties even stronger and deeper.
By involving these ambassadors in career fairs and visits to its farms and facilities, the salmon producer also knows it is investing not just in the futures of local young people but also in its existing workforce and in the long-term health of its business.
The ambassadors include everyone from fish health experts and environmentalists to HR managers and engineers, who give educational tours of everywhere from the hatchery at Barcaldine to a Shetland laboratory – especially popular with budding biologists.
The role has been taken on with such enthusiasm that there is even a healthy rivalry between different specialisms to come up with more and more engaging and inspiring aquaculture-based activities.
Members of the environmental team for example, quick to notice how many people were attracted by their engineering colleagues’ XBox-like crane simulator, soon devised an online game which challenges pupils to work out the best location for a new fish farm.
Dissecting a salmon is also a firm favourite with the youngsters.
Scottish Sea Farms Learning and Development Coordinator Irene Pozo says making clear the scheme is not just for scientists has helped make a success of it.
“I love to see those happy faces afterwards, not just the children but the staff telling everyone ‘we did this and we did that’”
“We all know what happens in the company and can explain it – you are not being asked to teach them science or anything,” she explains.
“Also not just knowing what you do, but knowing why you do it is important. That makes for a good communicator, that and having a passion for it.
“I had two colleagues who were initially reluctant to attend a careers day with me because they thought what they did was basic. I told them it really wasn’t, it was fascinating.
“Afterwards, they were so happy they’d attended because the kids loved it.”
Scottish Sea Farms, which operates on the mainland as well as Shetland and Orkney, is very aware of the challenge of keeping promising young talent in the local area – or attracting them back after they leave the region to study.
The work of its Food and Drink STEM Ambassadors in opening eyes to exciting career opportunities on the doorstep is important to achieving that.
“Every job in this sector has so much more to it that kids don’t know of and raising awareness is very important,” Irene says.
“I love to see those happy faces afterwards, not just the children but colleagues telling everyone ‘we did this and we did that’. It changes the mood completely.”
“I would encourage all firms to get involved in terms of the personal development of staff, because that will likely improve retention”, she adds.
“But also because eventually it will help the company overall. You may not see the results today or tomorrow but you will definitely see them.”
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