The benefits of a skilled workforce reach beyond closing the skills gap
Do you know your workforce?
The first challenge for businesses is addressing what skills are required and/or missing from their organisation to meet their goals. As 42 per cent of HR managers report that their job architecture is out of date and 45 per cent of employees corroborate that they don’t have a job description1 or the one they have is out of date.
The skills in your business are key criteria for success, without knowing what you have available and what you need to maintain or grow your business you’ll struggle to recruit and retain the right talent. To address this, you should start with undertaking a skills gap analysis and survey staff to identify any untapped talent and ambition to undertake training in new skills.
Now we know from multiple sources2, such as 80 per cent of HR managers1 experiencing a talent shortage, that the skills gap is real and far reaching across industries. For instance, Make UK recently highlighted that there are 55,000 unfilled long-term vacancies in the UK manufacturing sector3.
Once you know what skills are missing in your business you can better identify a plan that will benefit your organisation. And where possible, if you can deliver an upskilling programme you can reap benefits that strengthen your talent pool.
What are the benefits of upskilling?
Upskilling leads to substantial improvements in job performance4
This job performance improvement is driven not just by the skills, but the sense of belonging the individual feels to the company, and the job satisfaction that they get which in turn boost morale and engagement.
And ultimately for the employer you will have a workforce that’s not only skilled in what they do, they are happy doing it and are more likely to stay with you. Which is evidenced in a LinkedIn report that found organisations with a strong learning culture experienced 57 per cent higher employee retention6.
Having a better skilled workforce can also unburden staff who are having to take on increased workloads5 because of a shortage of skills, which again can lead to better retention of staff.
Recruitment and onboarding require substantial resource
We all know the financial burden of recruitment, especially if there is a lack of skills available within the jobs market. The process may not only be costly in fees, but it could also take a long time to find the skills you need. And then there will always be an element of onboarding.
By investing in training for your existing workforce, you’re cutting out the time to embed someone new as they already share your values and know your processes.
Upskilling enables you to target specific skills that are required for your business and it can futureproof you workforce. And, by aligning the results of your skills gap analysis to your existing workforce you can better match who would be most receptive to learning something new or advancing knowledge they already have.
Remember, training could simply be formalising a skill that someone already has or providing them with the relevant safety training to complete certain tasks.
With 68 per cent of organisations reporting tangible benefits as a result of upskilling and employee talent development initiatives6, what’s stopping you from investing in your workforce and future agile performance?
Contact our team to discuss your requirements and enquire about our bespoke training capabilities.
Sources
1The Gloat Research Group’s full workforce agility report https://resources.gloat.com/resources/12-workforce-agility-statistics-what-workers-want-what-hr-can-deliver/
3Make UK Industrial Strategy Skills Commission Report 2025 https://www.makeuk.org/make-uk-industrial-strategy-skills-commission-report-2025
4https://www.getbridge.com/resources/future-of-upskilling-employee-learning-2024/
5The Open University and British Chamber of Commerce https://www.britishchambers.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/The_Open_University_Business_Barometer_2024.pdf