Due to the rising technology and disruptive forces such as artificial intelligence, the gig economy, and automation, the nature of employment is fast changing. The precise impact of these and other developments is uncertain, but one thing is clear: the talents that companies value and rely on are shifting. As a result, a “skills gap” has emerged, with firms unable to find suitably qualified staff.

In the context of manufacturing alone, a recent Deloitte analysis states that “the skills gap may leave an estimated 2.4 million positions vacant between 2018 and 2028, with a potential economic effect of $2.5 trillion.”

Skills Gap and Employee Performance   

Organizational growth is inextricably connected to employee performance. Employee input, performance, and attention to their individual and collective responsibilities are directly related to organizational growth, whether measured as employee engagement, the measure of employee involvement and commitment, or productivity, the measure of employee output and quality thereof.

As a result, a low-skilled employee may be damaging to the organization’s overall effectiveness.

The skills gap is a real issue for corporate success. Organizations are discovering that talent pools in particular areas/professions are restricted, resulting in jobs requiring longer to fill. This lack of skilled individuals has a number of consequences for firms, including:

• a loss of productivity;
• a greater rate of staff turnover;
• lower levels of morale;
• worse-quality work;
• an inability to develop the business; and
• a loss of income.

In PwC’s 22nd annual global CEO survey, “four out of five CEOs bemoaned their employees’ lack of essential skills and identified that as a threat to growth.” With a worldwide skills gap that was one of the top three concerns of 79% of the CEOs surveyed, what can companies do?

In 2017, the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that 14% (375 million) of the global workforce would have to switch occupations or acquire new skills by 2030 because of automation and artificial intelligence. 

In a 2019 McKinsey Global Survey, 87% of executives said they were experiencing skill gaps in the workforce or expected them within a few years. But less than half of respondents had a clear sense of how to address the problem. Terraskills, having studied the dynamics of the evolving workplace, remote engagement and outsourcing, believe that professionals must begin to adapt to these dynamics.

The role of employers in Addressing Skills Gap

Skills gap is a critical policy issue, and companies are on the front lines of this war. In this setting, understanding employer views on hiring, training, and retraining a competent workforce is critical.

According to a recent Harvey Nash analysis, over two-thirds of chief information officers who responded to a poll were concerned that a lack of IT skills would hold back their company. The biggest shortages, however, were in Project Management and Change Management, which are not generally considered ‘IT’ capabilities.

The lack of consensus on which area has the greatest talent gap indicates that disparities exist in several elements, sectors, or businesses.

Businesses are always on the lookout for staff with industry-relevant skills due to the high expense of training and retraining. Being relevant is no longer enough these days; continued progress is increasingly advised due to the shifting terrain of the job.

Because of the high expense of staff training. Organizations rely on already qualified, experienced, and career-minded individuals to fill open jobs. As a result, organizations in Nigeria frequently seek employees with extensive expertise to fill even entry-level roles.

Aside from the upfront expenditures of employee training, there are also hidden costs involved with staff training. These include:

• the time of the manager/supervisor and the employee;
• the cost of supplies;
• transportation/travel time; and
• other administrative expenditures.

The role of employees in addressing skills gap

Employees have a critical role in bridging the skills gap. And that function is to improve what I refer to as personal infrastructure. Making sure your profession is future-proof entails constantly developing your talents while remaining relevant through appropriate interpretation of your present function and being adaptable enough to accept others.

According to estimates, approximately 20% of the workforce will be considerably under skilled for their employment by 2030. As a result, many people may find themselves less productive, dissatisfied with their jobs, or perhaps out of work entirely. The option is not difficult to see, yet many will act to future-proof their professions, while others will stay statistics.

Here are six job development strategies you may employ to secure your future:

1.  Become a life-long learner

“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.”

— Peter Drucker

Continued career growth is essential to staying relevant. Take a look at your existing skill set and think about what abilities you could learn to improve your long-term employability. Once you’ve identified your areas for growth, create a personal learning plan to outline how you’ll acquire those abilities.

Seek out learning opportunities. Accept new duties and apply for new positions. Participate in training classes and other professional development programs. Look for a mentor. It’s all about taking charge of your career, so spend some time figuring out where you want to go and what steps you need to take to get there.

2.  Think globally

With the advancement of technology, the development of remote labour, and the expansion of worldwide networking, organizations are operating more internationally and culturally diverse than ever before. Your co-workers, clients, and stakeholders most likely work all over the world. Working in a global workforce entails working with people from various languages, cultures, and backgrounds. The more experience you have with them, the more confident you will be. This will make you more productive in the future workplace.

As a result, it is critical that you expand your capacity to operate worldwide by learning about other cultures and technology, as well as developing your expertise in skills that will position you for global advantage.

3.  Build your professional network

It is critical to invest time in building connections with people both inside and outside of your organization. As the workplace landscape shifts, these individuals may provide vital assistance. You may pick up ideas and methods from outstanding leaders while also increasing your exposure to fresh chances.

There are several platforms that improve professional networking throughout the world, but LinkedIn stands out. However, there is always a give and take when it comes to expanding your network. As a result, you should establish your professional portfolio with relevant abilities that will help you advance and flourish in your job.

4.  Understand the future of your industry

Understanding the future of your sector is critical to future-proofing your career. Everything that happens in your business will most certainly have an influence on the organization for which you work as well as your function. To stay informed, keep up with changes in your career, industry, and the broader economy. Aim to work in industries and for firms that have a bright future and long-term viability.

One important method for future-proofing your job is to try to predict which technology your company is likely to embrace. You may accomplish this in a variety of ways, such as by keeping an eye on technological developments in your business. You should also pay attention to what officials say about the company’s digital transformation aspirations.

5.  Be flexible and open to new opportunities

Embracing flexibility is critical to future success and professional security. Companies will begin to view work differently as more organizations automate fundamental operations. Your function or job title will no longer define or constrain your work in the future. It will be built on people’s improved capacity to apply their own distinct set of skills, knowledge, and abilities to their work.

6.  Upskilling to adapt change

Continue your professional growth by obtaining transferrable abilities that are desired by all companies. Core competences in today’s and tomorrow’s occupations include, for example, leadership, communication, innovation, and stress management.

Developing a diverse set of competences, skills, and talents can help you land a new career or break into a new field. As a result, you could see a nurse with business abilities and a web designer with financial knowledge.

Strategy to enhance career development

To encourage career development Terraskills developed T-CAP (Terraskills Career Advancement Program). Which helps employees and professionals adapt to the changing landscape of the workplace. To adapt to the changing landscape of work, service delivery and product design and delivery, professionals must continually build new competencies that will enable them to adapt to the changing demands of the workplace. Keeping up with the pace of technological advancement and process development is a challenge for most professionals. This and thecoronavirus pandemic have made upskilling and reskilling more urgent. It has become pertinent that workers and indeed all professionals across industries figure out how they can adapt to the rapidly changing professional ecosystems; and professionals must as well prepare for the dynamisms of job roles.

The dynamics that indicates that the structure, content, and process of work have changed.

Work is now:

• more cognitively complex
• more team-based and collaborative
• more dependent on social skills
• more dependent on technological competence
• more time pressured
• more mobile and less dependent on geography.

The dynamic that shows the increasing pressure on organisations to be more competitive, agile and customer focused indicates that organizations today are:

• leaner and more agile
• more focused on identifying value from the customer’s perspective
• more tuned to dynamic competitive requirements and strategy
• less hierarchical in structure and decision authority
• less likely to provide lifelong careers and job security
• continually reorganizing to maintain or gain competitive advantage.

To meet these challenges, Terraskills developed the Career Advancement Program (T-CAP) based on a model specific to professionals in all works of life to position them for continuous success in the global workforce and contribute to a strong Organisational and National Economy.

Discover new skills that match the growing needs of employers.

Develop industry relevant skills from our array of courses; explore courses below;

Healthcare Management

The world’s population is aging. In 2015, 12.3 percent of the global population was above the age of 60. It is expected that by 2030, this will have risen to 16.4 percent, and by 2050, it will have risen to 21.3 percent. This is just one aspect of healthcare, there are many that show that there is shortage of healthcare professional to handle the increasing healthcare challenges that arise.

When these shortages are compared to the expected growth in demand, we can see that healthcare workers will be in great demand, not just in the employment market, but by mankind as a whole. The coronavirus epidemic, without a doubt, has let us all realize this more clearly than ever before.

Marketing and Sales

Sales and marketing do not appear to be very promising occupations. However, these skills are having increasing relevance, and will be more necessary in future workplaces since they cannot be mechanized. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), these positions presently account for the highest part of the existing and future employment market and will continue to do so in 2022, expanding over the following two years.

Technology has transformed marketing by introducing new channels such as social media, affiliate marketing, and digital content. More crucially, analytic tools enable hitherto unheard-of levels of data collecting and performance monitoring. This raises the stakes, pushing marketers to step up their game in order to remain competitive.

Digital Innovation and Transformation

According to WEF, data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be significant drivers of future growth in the foreseeable future. The breadth and variety of big data will only expand in the next years, allowing machine learning and automation. Data is the language that will enable the connectedness that is at the core of Industry 4.0. As a result, people who can organize data collecting, understand the outcomes, and make decisions based on this information will be in great demand.

There is now a skills gap in data literacy. According to Accenture and Qlik research, 74% of employees are uncomfortable dealing with data. This has a knock-on impact; on average, businesses lose 43 hours of productivity per employee per year owing to a lack of data literacy. Furthermore, according to PwC study, while 69 percent of businesses needed data skills from employees in 2021, this percentage is likely to grow exponentially.

Information Technology

Digital technologies have emerged as a key factor of economic development, national security, and international competitiveness. The digital economy has a significant impact on the global trajectory as well as the socioeconomic well-being of the people. It has an impact on everything from resource allocation to income distribution and economic growth.

The ICT sector is a growth engine. In recent years, the industry has made amazing strides, propelling genuine economic growth and job creation. The expansion of digital technology will continue to cause enormous structural changes in global economies, securing the IT industry’s place as a key source of growth and employment.

Leadership and Management

A renewed emphasis on leadership is critical for guiding the workforce of the future. Leaders must identify successful methods to manage their team as it is now while simultaneously developing their style and implementing small modifications to future-proof the approach and guarantee it works just as well in the future. Focusing on leading a team rather than managing it is one method to do this, by putting employees’ needs first and providing them with the tools they need to succeed.