Understanding Skills Gap And What To Do About It
The world keeps changing just like before but now, at an astronomical pace. In every dimension of life, change is effected in a manner that makes the former characteristics and approaches obsolete. This gives a huge concern to people who keenly observe this change. The thought of what to do and how to quicken steps so that you can be at the same place with change occupies our minds and sometimes leaves us drained.
In this article, you will see how to understand the changes in the workplace as it concerns skills. Skills are those personal and developmental qualities that enable you to accomplish every task given to you at work. Without skills, there would not be any need to recruit people into the workforce. Skills also distinguish prospective employees from one another. But due to rapid technological advancements, some of the skills that were highly sought after, are now kicked to the relegation zone. And more new skills are needed.
The implication is that our current employees may not be as efficient as they were in the past. And the prospective employees may or may not have those new essential skills to manage their jobs. To show how important and urgent this problem is, technology keeps changing at a fast speed. So what should be done?
1) Understanding your industry and the changes that have occurred so far: Whether you are a recruiter or an employee, you need to keep abreast of the changes in the industry. This will help you to focus on what is needed in the industry. It will also aid your imagination in the projection of what the future will look like. With this, you will be forced to look inwards as a recruiter or analyze yourself as an employee. As an employee, knowing the direction of the industry will help you to see your strengths and weaknesses in a clear form. What you should consider as strengths should be those skills that are indispensable to the organization.
Remember that in the classification of skills, there are some that the company can not do without. There are others that the organization may wish you to possess but they are not detrimental to your job function and can do without. Capture those skills that are needed and work on upscaling them. If it means going for training, internships, and conferences, do not hesitate to improve them. Nevertheless, you can also add other skills which would improve your performance. Another thing to consider is your weaknesses especially if they are in the way of learning new skills.
2) Learning, in learning and relearning: In the 90s, a secretary uses a typewriter but as time advanced, he had to adjust to the use of the computer and all the applications that come with it. In essence, the skill of typing is modified to suit the use of computers. This requires an extensive overhaul of previous knowledge and the new admirable culture of learning, unlearning, and relearning. Traditionally, the industry or company suppose to take you on training so that you can match up with the changing sector. But it is not always like that. This is because companies are capitalist and may not wish to spend money on personnel. They may prefer to employ a fresh employee with a lower cadre but necessary skills. This management strategy will ultimately render you redundant and leaves you with the only option of resignation or lower paychecks. Even if the company decides to sponsor your training, it still depends on you to make it worthwhile. Your disposition to learn while disposing of redundant ones will go a long way to elevating you to the limelight. Moreover, a company will value you more if you go the extra mile by attending online classes in your field and creating more time at your leisure to improve your performance.
3) Work psychology: The aim of seeking to fill the skill gap in your industry is to remain relevant and continually get recognized in your job. For this, some soft skills do not only compliment you but also give you a broader horizon. That skill is communication. In a bid to stay on the top, you must learn to communicate with your boss and subordinates in the office. You can also extend this fellowship to your colleagues who are not in your office. This will encourage a friendly environment and in the end, fuels informative communication. This attitude will help you to know what is trending in the industry. Apart from that, you can constantly think loudly about how to improve your work in terms of time and accuracy. Your colleagues could be of help in managing your schedule. For example, they can help you with the choice of either say Trello, ClickUp, and others.
4) Recruitment management: Being in a fast-changing work economy can push you to leadership. And that is a piece of good news but also a challenging task. This is because the relevance of your corporation directly depends on your decision. This also includes how you manage and recruit the workforce. In an advanced economy such as the gig economy which the world experiences now, the way of recruitment should change so that the skill gap will be highly minimized if not eliminated.
Academics should not be the mandate for employment but relevant skills. It means that both educated and non-educated can be considered so far they have the skill. For example, Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science has nothing to do with the ability to use a combination of Kotlink and Java in programming an application. Big tech companies know this and only consider degrees as a preamble to what one can offer. Mark Zukerberg could not wait to get his degree because he had the programming skill needed to change the social world. Assuming he went for a job and his recruiter told him that he had no degree, it would have been a massive loss for the company even without them knowing it.
Finally, the world will continue to advance so that human involvement in work is greatly minimized. Consequently, human beings will be trained for new jobs so that they can manage non-human workers in their respective industries. That is essentially what creates a skills gap and you can solve it by constantly being on your toes.