(Expansion) – The shortage of talent is a problem that is becoming more acute worldwide and whose figures are alarming for organizations; it is estimated that by 2030, there will be more than 85 million jobs that could become vacant because there would not be enough skilled people to fill them, according to a report by Korn Ferry and the industries most affected will be financial services, technology, telecommunications and manufacturing.
This should leave in absolute evidence the importance of taking responsibility for the development of soft skills of our collaborators and work teams, becoming one of the strategic pillars of company growth.
There are several factors by which this problem has been triggered, one of them is the generational change. Most of the baby boomers, those people who were born between 1946 and 1964 and who make up about a third of the workforce, will retire in this next decade, and the younger generations will not have had the training to take charge of many of the jobs that will become vacant, whose expertise is not only related to technical aspects but also to issues of team management, management capacity, business vision and others that directly impact the success of any organization.
This panorama makes clear to us the great need that companies have to improve the skills of young talent, such as resilience, adaptability, critical thinking, reasoning and problem solving, remote leadership, creativity, among others; however, despite this urgency, not all organizations are prepared to close this gap. Globally, only 19% of companies are ready to do so, according to a Gartner survey.
As leaders we must be flexible enough to adapt to these new realities and make a profound change in terms of skills development and continuous learning, in response to talent shortages. It is vital to focus on retaining valuable employees and achieving a solid base in the company’s talent, since in this way we can have a workforce that can be available to fill other positions in the organization and, without a doubt, tools such as reskilling and upskilling are the keys to achieving it.
While there is a difference between reskilling , also known as the process of learning new skills in order to be reassigned to a different position within the organization, and upskilling , training related to the same job or another position within the same area, both are extremely vital to overcoming the retention and recruitment challenges that lie ahead.
A clear example can be seen with highly strategic technology positions such as programmers and developers of all kinds, engineers in different branches, product managers, big data analysts, and others with digital approaches, who are increasingly important to stay competitive. faced with market trends and many companies have difficulty finding this specialized talent; so that organizations understand the need to improve the skills of their current employees.
Another strategy that is also being used in the corporate world is the creation of talent academies that not only aim to improve the skills of the company’s internal workforce, but are also becoming part of the company’s culture. .
Strengthening training processes is one of the activities of greatest value to employees; Evidence of this are the job satisfaction surveys where this factor is part of the top 5 of the reasons why a person decides to stay in a company and stay committed.
Human talent leaders know that to implement an upskilling and reskilling strategy in a company, it is necessary to work on a competency management model from its attraction, selection, training and development processes, in coherence with each stage of talent management human. Those who do not consider it essential are at risk of failing in their attempt to implement these tools as part of their training processes.
For this reason, it is extremely important to identify the talent that we already have, start the programs with competency diagnoses that allow us to clearly know the potential that each collaborator has to develop the competencies required for the success of the role in the company, and in turn the training gaps, so, yes, to develop the corresponding reskilling and upskilling programs and options.
As we can see, constant learning, driven by both workers and organizations, will be essential for the future of work and to face the talent shortage. The responsibility that we assume as leaders in an organization is increasingly related to the development of the talent of the members of our workforce, especially in the face of the new challenges that arise.
After all, skills development significantly increases employee retention and engagement.
Editor’s note: Gabriela Rodríguez is Regional Director for Latin America at Evaluar.com. He has more than 17 years of experience in digital transformation for the Human Resources areas. He has collaborated with leaders and HR directors of companies in Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay, Central America and Mexico, being part of the digital innovation of Latin America in everything related to Talent Attraction, Evaluation and Selection. Follow her on . The opinions published in this column belong exclusively to the author.
