Unlocking hidden talent in your workforce
Skills shortages in all sectors are well publicised. A rapidly evolving job market, technological advancements and changing customer priorities means that previous approaches to talent simply aren’t working. A candidate led market which is showing no sign of slowing down also means that job seekers have different demands and want more from potential employers.
To meet the talent needs of your organisation and mitigate the risk of future talent shortages, employers must invest in employee skills development right away.
Research suggests that due to advancements in technology across all industries, particularly the increasing use of AI, 50% of employees will need some form of reskilling by 2025 to meet the skills requirements of their existing and future roles.
So, it’s easy to understand why half of all leaders are concerned about the impact of skills gaps on their goals, productivity, and profitability. A recent McKinsey report clearly outlines that upskilling your current workforce is required to deliver real business value;
“Developing an aggressive strategy to attract, cultivate, and retain a variety of workers with critical skill sets will be essential to keep pace. These roles will include data engineers, data scientists, technologists, cloud computing specialists, and experience designers. To retain knowledge while also ensuring the business has the new skills and capabilities necessary to compete, many organizations will design and implement reskilling programs. As a last component of developing the new workforce, organizations will identify external resources and partners to augment in-house capabilities that will help carriers secure the needed support for business evolution and execution.”
An attractive prospect
The current candidate-led market is driving changes in the way employers attract talent. No longer simply a benefits and rewards issue, most candidates will look to what an employer can offer them in terms of skills and career development and choose the employer presenting the most enticing package. In fact, studies suggest that opportunities for development ranks even higher than salary when candidates were asked what they were looking for in potential employers.
This means that employers who fail to offer ongoing skills development will lag behind the competition in any recruitment process and potentially miss out on the skills they need.
Retention
Skills development isn’t only important for talent attraction though. Providing access to employee learning can help you hold on to your existing talent and prevent your best workers from being poached by the competition.
When questioned, 70% of employees say that they would leave their existing employer if offered a role with an organisation that invests in employee learning and development. This is even more prevalent as younger generations move through their career journey, with 87% of millennials saying that access to career growth and professional development is a major contributing factor in whether they stay with their current employer.
Losing high quality talent to the competition because you're unable to offer a promising outlook for your workforce will undoubtedly be a harsh blow for any employer navigating the challenges of an economic downturn. Ensuring that your staff feel valued, supported, and invested in is crucial to avoid regretted attrition.
Find them, and keep them
When you consider the current skills market, alongside the lack of quality talent and a candidate led market driving changing demands of candidates and employees, it’s no wonder that 83% of companies report that they are struggling to attract and recruit the talent they need.
Simply investing in recruitment just isn’t going to solve the skills gap problem.
An internal mobility program is one way of ensuring that you can attract the new talent required to plug your skills gaps, while providing opportunities for employees to develop their skills and grow their career.
Aspire - A competition beating internal mobility programme
Resource Solutions’ Aspire model delivers a competitive internal mobility program which not only provides a solution to existing skills shortages, but also future-proofs your talent going forward.
Aspire works through a simple four-step framework.
Step one
Assess the skills level of your current workforce, identify any gaps, and benchmark your existing skills against the requirements of your business objectives.
This gives you the data you need to develop a reskilling programme, while signalling to existing workers that you are committed to their learning and development.
Step two
Develop a skills development pathway, which aligns to each role profile and meets existing and future requirements.
Reskilling can provide a pathway to different roles and skill sets, while upskilling helps ensure that skills profile matches career goals.
Step three
Provide the required training and development opportunities in a meaningful and engaging way. Ensuring that you provide an immersive learning journey that meets the needs of different types of learners:
- A variety of self paced learning opportunities
- Remote as well as classroom-based activities
- A diverse array of learning materials from live labs through to traditional books
- Learning progression and acknowledgement in the form of badges, certificates, and qualifications.
Step four
Provide coaching and mentoring opportunities to ensure that employees stay on track, are meeting their objectives and targets, and that their career goals can be achieved.
A talent development programme can provide much-needed skills both now and into the future, while offering an attractive proposition for new talent and helping employers hold on to their best workers. It also provides a cost-effective and reliable strategy versus a high-risk and resource draining recruitment drive.
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Unlocking hidden talent in your workforce
