Accelerating critical skills mastery to close the enterprise skills gap

Agata Nowakowska at Skillsoft argues that enterprises need to act fast to prevent skills shortages from undermining their future performance and market success.

 

As many as 83% of organisations are reporting skill gaps in their workforces.

 

In today’s fast-moving world, enterprise agility depends on empowering high performing teams with the right skills and capabilities. This is no easy task when the rapid evolution of workplace technologies and changing workforce demographics add to the challenge of ensuring employees are constantly re-equipped with the skills needed to keep up with changing operational demands.

 

As digital transformation intensifies, gaps in technology-related skills are proving especially pertinent, with more than 75% of IT decision-makers citing this as a top issue.

 

Success, however, depends on having a solid plan for addressing the rapidly changing skilling requirements of individual workers. One that enables organisations to fast-track skills progression through the delivery of timely learning and development (L&D) that’s uniquely tailored to the unique requirements of every employee.

 

 

Taking the guesswork out of where learning should start

Before training begins, organisations must first identify where current and potential skills gaps lie and accurately assess learners’ skill levels to deliver relevant content that aligns with their readiness and goals.

 

In other words, a skills-based strategy begins with gaining deep visibility into the skills position across the enterprise. Assessing the skills proficiency of individual learners takes the guesswork out of where training should start and is a critical first step for delivering the personalised skills development today’s employees expect.

 

To accelerate enterprise-wide skills acquisition, organisations must personalise learning at scale, empowering employees to self-direct their learning and future-proof their capabilities. That means creating learning paths and learning recommendations that fit both business and individual needs in a way that rewards continual skills growth.

 

To understand the skills landscape and align workforce skills to business strategies and critical growth initiatives, organisations must undertake benchmark assessments to explore all employees’ current skills and skill depth.

 

 

Getting to grips with assessment: criterion vs normative-based skills training

Traditional normative-based assessments compare learners’ knowledge to the average of other learners. However, this may not match the level of proficiency an organisation requires to be successful. With normative testing, learners can perform poorly and pass if they are not the lowest performer.

 

However, in criterion-based assessment scenarios, learners are assessed against a predetermined standard score set by subject matter experts. It’s an approach that more accurately considers whether an individual measure up to what is needed and can put knowledge into practice when undertaking tasks or functioning in-role.

 

For enterprises that want to create more effective learning paths, criterion-based assessments allow both the organisation and its learners to determine if they are objectively proficient in specific skill areas and can successfully apply gained knowledge in the workplace.

 

 

Keeping learners on the right track

Criterion-based assessments also play a crucial role in setting the learning objectives that signpost the way to skill acquisition. These learning objectives articulate the specific outcomes learners need to achieve at each stage of their learning journey, and progress can be measured objectively and transparently.

 

This means individuals can precisely determine what they need to learn to become proficient, focusing only on the content and know-how required to achieve their next learning objective.

 

By structuring the skills acquisition process, learners quickly identify and remedy knowledge gaps while L&D leaders objectively measure workforce capabilities and track progress toward mastery.

 

 

Initiating a continual skills-acquisition culture

Employees now expect relevant learning opportunities to be proactively served up in a way that enables them to build skills relevant to their role and personal goals. With hybrid working becoming the norm, organisations must adapt their learning programmes at speed to ensure that learning can take place frequently, is accessible to all, and is available on any device — desktop, laptop, smartphone or tablet — at any time and at any location.

 

With the pressure to cascade learning across the enterprise in a highly impactful way, organisations are adopting a blended approach to learning delivery that serves up continual learning opportunities in formats designed to satisfy the time-challenged needs of today’s workforces.

 

Whether that’s on-demand access to videos, podcasts, e-books, assignments, and hands-on-learning modalities that enable them to try out their newly acquired skills. Or bite-sized learning that can be fitted around busy schedules.

 

 

Closing the enterprise skills gap

The opportunity is to unleash personalised learning that fosters self-development.

 

Employee time limitations, irrelevant content and difficulty knowing where to start can all prove roadblocks for enterprises that need to update their skills inventory continually. By leveraging dynamic skills assessments, organisations can connect people with the relevant skills learning at the right time.

 

By delivering high-quality and personalised skills development, featuring tailored micro-learning opportunities that fit around an individual’s natural flow of work, organisations will be able to create future-fit workforces that are prepared for the jobs of today and tomorrow.

 

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Agata Nowakowska is Area Vice President EMEA at Skillsoft where she leads the field operations, including enterprise and small & mid-market, as well as channel sales/strategic alliances across Europe, Middle East and Africa.

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com