A hardworking and productive workforce is key to taking a business closer to success. But often, skill gaps can slow down the overall progress to a great extent. In fact, over 87% of companies globally admit to having skill gaps within their workforce or are expecting it within the next few years.

To avoid this, you need to actively take steps to improve the skills of your employees. And before you embark on trying to bridge the said gap within your organization, you first need to conduct a skills gap analysis to identify the areas where your current workforce is lacking.

Where Does The Root Of The Skills Gap Lie?

1. Understand What Skills Your Organization Needs

Bridging the skills gap can prove to be difficult unless you get to the root of the problem. Start with identifying the specific skills your team (or the company as a whole) is looking for. These may include both hard and soft skills. By understanding the skills needed by your organization, you can make better choices when it comes to hiring new recruits.

2. Leverage Training

All your employees may not have the skills you need. So, do you fire them and recruit new individuals? The answer is no. You don’t need to replace employees who lack some of the skills you’re looking for. Instead, you can provide training to help them master the said skills. Try launching an internal skill development platform for your employees, and you are sure to bridge the gap faster.

3. Outsource

You might find yourself in a situation where you have to urgently finish a project but you lack skilled personnel who can help make it a success. In such cases, using outsourcing to bridge the skills gap is the right way forward. This is especially true if you are looking for highly specialized technical skills that cannot be learned in a short time.

Strategy To Mix And Match Talent Strategies

1. Highlight Critical Skills Needed

The first thing you need to do in order to hire the right talent is highlighting the key skills you are looking for. This will help you narrow down the huge pool of candidates applying for a specific position.

2. Analyze Markets For Skills

Next, try to determine the skills that are already present within your current workforce. This can be done by creating an inventory of skills that is updated on a regular basis. This helps in monitoring the changing skill needs of your organization more effectively.

3. Prioritize Talent Strategies

You need to prioritize your talent strategies based on some crucial factors. These may include time, short-term and long-term costs, value, feasibility, and so on.

4. Combine Strategies

Last but not least, you need to combine all the above strategies to come up with a plan that works best for your needs. 

Conclusion

Once you are aware of where the skill gap lies within your organization, it won’t be too difficult to take care of the issue. With the right combination of talent strategies, you’ll be able to bridge the skills gap sooner than expected.