Most senior executives agree they have a skills gap, but if asked cannot be specific about which skills fall into that gap; nor can their HR team. STEM is not an answer BTW. They can tell you how many phones or laptops they have, or inventory or raw goods in the warehouse; that’s all on a spreadsheet or in a Finance/ERP system. After all, those are expensive items. But how expensive when lined up against payroll?
Investing in understanding the skills of the workforce is R&D, how else can an organization grow, adapt or reinvent itself in face of product, industry or competitive change? Its like know the cost of input into a new product.
Does your organization know what skills each employee has? Is there a description that defines what good skill outcomes look like for doing every job well today? If not, its being left up to luck and assumption that people will do what you expect and need them to do. Neither of those are two actions are a way to make decisions in running a business.
Competencies is often the longest ‘4 letter’ word in HR. It often goes along with the, “what is the difference between a skill and competency anyway?”, or “we’ve got done that and it didn’t work”. But skills are the currency of work; they always have been but to run an agile workforce its a critical foundation to running a business. Its not about going on the ‘too hard’ pile, or ‘it failed before’ bin.
At INWork, one of our key competencies is in demonstrating the business value in knowing the skills gap, and then taking action to close it. It doesn’t need to take years; in fact it can be done in a matter of weeks.
Contact INWork to see how to realize your institutional capital from what not knowing is costing, and what addressing it can bring your organization and employees.
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