The Secret to Bridge the Skill Gap

“Do you know 70% of employee reports that they do not have mastery of skills that are required to perform a job?” (Source: gartner.com)

Bridging a skill gap has become a need of the hour as digitalization of the workplace is widening the gap. 64% of manager doesn’t think their employees can keep pace future skill needs. (Source: gartner.com)

Training and development come to the rescue at this point though it is ranked lowest in the priority list of an organization. Training helps the employee to perform their current job and development helps the employee to prepare himself for future job responsibilities. Training and development will be a boon to the organization as it will help in:

1. Identifying the skill gap: This means the skill required to perform a particular job and the skill an employee process. This will in turn help in identifying the weak areas of employees.
2. Bridging the skill gap: with the help of training, the employee will get a chance to enhance his skills and turn his weakness into his strengths.
3. Increase productivity: by implementing training programs the productivity of an employee will increase which will result in completing the task more effectively and efficiently and resulting in improving the company’s turnover over thus increasing its market share too.
4. The motivation for innovation: By successfully implementing the proper training programs the employee morale gets boost up which encourages creativity.
5. Reduce employee turnover: An employee develops a feeling of belongingness when an employer invests in upskilling him and this is a step towards winning employees’ loyalty thus reducing the employee turnover and also results in reducing the recruitment cost due to employee retention.
6. Builds company’s reputation: Employer brand is a talked-about term of this era and to develop a brand company needs to develop a comprehensive training strategy that will build an employer brand and will become a preferred brand among individuals seeking a job.

Training should be an integral part of the work culture and it can be a costly affair too but as Nehru said, “Training is expensive. Without training, it is more expensive”. So it is never too late to build a team which is upskilled and upgraded in all aspects.