Develop Your Employees to Help Fill the Skills Gap

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Developing your employees’ skills is more vitally important than ever. The workforce recruitment and talent management firm ManpowerGroup reported that 45% of the organizations in its recent survey found that the skills they need were not available to them – the highest level since the firm started recording these statistics in 2006. For large employers, it’s even more problematic. Two-thirds of companies that have over 250 employees reported talent shortages. When looking to hire, they found a lack of applicants in general, and for the people who did apply, many were missing the technical or people skills, educational background or experience needed. A quarter of the surveyed companies thought it was worse than a year ago.

CEOs understand that business growth is dependent on the availability and quality of the workforce’s capabilities. Talent planning, therefore, must be imbedded in the fabric of any strategic plan. This goes well beyond placing the responsibility only on human resources. The entire C-suite and, indeed, the entire organization, must mobilize to understand the talent available within the company. Then senior leadership must grasp how that stacks up against the current and future talent needs to plan for tomorrow. HR is central to managing the effort, but the entire enterprise must participate to assure that the needed talent will be available.