75% of companies surveyed are facing a skill deficit, which means they are unable to find employees who have the skills needed for the job. This isn’t to say that the workforce isn’t competent (or even highly skilled)! However, it does tell us that there is an increasing need for a skills-based workforce, and we’re not there yet.
Generally speaking – recruiters try to pick the best person for the job, and with so many job seekers right now, they aren’t exactly starved for choice. The recruiter will pick their top candidate, and we must assume they’re also the best-suited…so if they’re lacking skills, the gap must be fairly large. How did we end up with such a big deficit?
Why is a skills-based workforce popular now?
Tech adoption is proving to be one of the biggest challenges. Increasingly, employees are more inclined to choose jobs with remote or hybrid setups; however, that comes with a virtual (and tech) learning curve. In turn, businesses want to maximize their productivity using smarter tech, but the transition can cause rough transition and adoption cycles.
These new working methods also leave some old skills redundant. For example, now if you were looking for a translator, you’d be specifically looking for a translator that does more than Google translate (or some more robust translating AI). This might mean niche communication skills, or even just the ability to be physically present in translating scenarios. In turn, this means evaluating the skill sets more closely on a resume, creating a skills-based workforce.
Employers and employees would both need to prioritize skills. Employers get more productivity, efficiency, and quality from a skills-based workforce, and employees that prioritize learning the right skills are likely to get a better job. Facts are facts, we live in a skill economy, so the more (literally) skilled you are, the more lucrative your prospects!
A skills-based workforce is the future, and here’s how you can go about planning for it:
Skills matter the most
As the name suggests, for a skills-based workforce, the prime focus is on…well…skills, with increasing importance being placed on skills over other resume staples. Educational qualifications and an impeccable resume made sense in the past, but today, the more popular question is: how well can they do the job at hand?
Of course, the factors mentioned above can help you contextualize the candidate and how their skills fit into the larger picture of employee experience. Let’s say you were hiring for a web developer – if someone has done it for the last six years, you could safely assume they know how to be a web developer. If they also studied it in college, that’s an added bonus.
A skills-based workforce means a deeper dive. Are they with AI? How many programming languages are they well-versed with? Can they efficiently lead a team?
Hard or soft, it all comes down to skills.
Conduct a regular skills audit
Businesses around the globe have a giant skill deficit right now, so to support a skills-based workforce, we have to prioritize filling in this gap. Naturally, the first step is identifying that there is a gap on your resume and figuring out what skills you might be missing.
Conducting a skills audit is the fastest way to figuring out what skills your employees need to learn or upskill.
A skills audit is the process of identifying the skills required for different jobs across the business correctly as well as recognizing each individual employee’s personal skills and providing them the space to grow in the area of their own expertise, instead of trying to fit them in a role they aren’t suited for. Needless to say, if you want to understand why and what works for your business, you’ll want a skills audit.
Make way for upskilling
Once you have done the skills audit, you will know where your current workforce is lacking. From this point, you could go about hiring new people for the job who have the skills you need, or you could start enabling your existing workforce to learn these new skills and perform as expected (some combination of the two approaches may also be warranted, depending!). Hiring new candidates is more expensive than nurturing and developing existing employees, and more tenured employees are already familiar with the company’s services, work culture, and challenges. If they have already worked with the business for a while, they are also more likely to be invested in the business’ growth.
So, companies looking to bridge the skill deficit can absolutely focus on their current employees and provide them the means to upskill within the company.
This does require the business to set aside a reasonable budget, certain work hours, and useful resources for each employee – this is an immersive investment of time, capital, and energy. However, this is the investment that definitely pays in the long run, and is probably still less expensive than hiring all new employees.
Foresight is a skill in itself
As tech adaptation has rendered some skills redundant and obsolete, this means that regular skills audits and upskilling are critically important. Businesses should always be on the watch for new trends and changes so they can stay ahead of the curve and provide their employees with marked growth paths.
Businesses that are future-oriented will make those investments in the present.
More learning happens hands-on
Even with all the learning and development opportunities you provide to your workforce, employees may still need some more practice, and that experience will probably happen on the job!
Skills, by their very nature, involve practice, trial, and execution. When we put these skills to work, we also learn their nuances and get closer to mastering them. You should also enable your team to take up cross-department or outside-their-comfort-zone projects that they naturally have a talent for. This will allow them to remain productive and contribute to the company, while also upskilling and career pathing within the business.
Above all, remember that the process of upskilling and executing takes time, and the learning and growing have to be phased in for a smooth transition. Because it will take time, you should start with your skills-based workforce planning today.
Want more nuggets of wisdom on talent management and the future of work? Check out our B2B newsletter, we share more nuggets of wisdom on talent management and the future of work.
