Organizations are in a bit of a panic right now when it comes to building skills. For years, they haven’t been quite sure what skills the business needs — or how to develop them properly when they do know. The future of work requires organizations to focus on rapid skills development to meet tomorrow’s business needs.
Brandon Hall Group’s Learning Strategy Study found that only 36% of organizations believe they are prepared to properly develop the skills the business will require in the near future. This puts nearly two-thirds of organizations squarely behind the eight ball when it comes to meeting business objectives. It can seem like a completely overwhelming proposition for an organization to move forward. They simply cannot overcome the inertia of the spot in which they find themselves.
To prepare for the future, an organization needs to start unpacking this skills challenge now. An organization needs to level-set on the skills the business says it needs. This is especially critical in the face of today’s “Great Resignation” environment. Many organizations are experiencing high turnover which leads to widening skills gaps for the future of work.
The use assessments to evaluate workforce skills is a must. Skillsoft just launched a new offering in their Percipio platform to address this need — Skill Benchmarks. Organizations can now leverage benchmarks created by subject matter experts to drive their learning initiatives. Skillsoft’s is leveraging their market leading expertise in building and curating skills-based content to derive these benchmarks.
These assessments can be used to target previously unknown skill gaps and help to build new programs to address these gaps. Assessments can be used to create the personalized learning experiences to build out skills and competencies, eliminating redundant or irrelevant training. When applied across large numbers of people in the organization, these assessments can create the data needed to drive workforce transformation. Skillsoft offers powerful dashboards that show how the workforce is broken into proficiency levels in key skills.
Level-setting on currently available skills through the use of assessments will position organizations to meet the challenges ahead. By using Skillsoft’s benchmarks to define and close current skills gaps, organizations can build a framework to continually meet the changing skill needs of the business and the future of work.
–David Wentworth, Principal Analyst, Brandon Hall Group
–Michael Rochelle, Principal Analyst, Brandon Hall Group
