Gaps in business knowledge and skills can exist at any level of an organisation and in all industry sectors: they are the difference between what your staff know and what they need to know.
Today, due to the rapid evolution of digital in all areas of business, the skill sets required change constantly. Identifying the knowledge gaps, and working to bridge them, helps to protect organisations in a variety of ways.
Competitiveness
The clear benefit of overcoming knowledge or skills gaps is to ensure the business is competitive. Ignoring these gaps may mean that a business will progressively fall behind in the marketplace while those who have more knowledgeable and skilled personnel will gain a competitive advantage. Yet in a recent report it was found that 64% of organisations believe that they have a skills gap and this gap is widening. *1Closing the Skills Gap, Wiley and Future Workplace 2019
Profitability
Following hard on the heels of competitiveness is profitability. By filling the gaps and providing employees with ongoing training and support leads to a more efficient and effective workforce, thus protecting the business more from external influences and market forces. Yet 40% of HR leaders ‘struggle to secure funds to invest in upskilling programs and 35% lack in-house training resources or find it difficult to identify external training options. *2Closing the Skills Gap, Wiley and Future Workplace 2019
Consistency
While creativity and innovation should be encouraged, the need for consistency in processes and business activities is important. By filling knowledge and skills gaps, approaches and methods can be aligned and made consistent across an organisation. This results in personnel pulling together rather than working in ways which may be in conflict internally.
As knowledge gaps are filled, there will always be new ones arising and so the process of resolving these should be continuous and part of the culture and practice of a successful business. It is important to know how to identify the knowledge gaps and have a plan for tackling them.
Identification of knowledge or skills gaps
Multiple ways of identifying knowledge or skills gaps can be employed but they should be customised and be relevant to the organisation. Among the many online tools, tests, quizzes and reviews are simple and engaging forms of assessment. Direct employee engagement might include focus groups and interviews.
Using a 360-degree approach gathers data on groups of employees rather than individuals. Observation can also provide valuable information on performance as well as highlighting the best performers and analysing others against this benchmark.
Filling knowledge or skills gaps
Training is vital for overcoming knowledge and skills gaps. It can be done in a variety of ways: face to face, online, blended and others – and in various formats. Focusing on the gaps that need to be filled, currently and in future, is an ongoing requirement in an evolving work landscape. 54% of the workforce will need reskilling by 2022 *3Future of Jobs, World Economic Forum 2018 and emerging technologies will increase the need of organizations to ensure that they are keeping up with the latest business knowledge and skills.
In future posts, we’ll be looking in more detail at how identification of knowledge and skills gaps is carried out, the multiple ways in which staff can be trained and best practice. If you would like to be kept up to date as we post these, then sign up to our newsletter here today.