The Skills Gap Conundrum

The widening skills gap is one of the top challenges facing global leaders today. What’s your skill transformation equation?

- Mastufa Ahmed

The shift towards digitisation and automation has distended the skills gap further forcing businesses to innovate their capability-building approaches in the new world of work. Close to 70 per cent of employers globally are struggling to find skilled workers, especially in high-demand areas like operations and logistics, manufacturing and production, IT, sales, and marketing, according to a study by ManpowerGroup. Employees are forced to learn new skills to augment business transformations and grow their careers.

Undoubtedly, the need to address skill gaps by adapting employees’ skills and roles to the new ways of working is more urgent than ever for organisations to come stronger on the other side. In fact, staying ahead of others calls for significant investment in employee training programs. Unfortunately, for many, Learning and Development (L&D) continues to be underinvested.

But the mindset is changing and continuous skilling is being reconsidered as a crucial growth driver. For L&D professionals, the spotlight is on reskilling and upskilling, which is the top priority globally, according to a 2021 report from LinkedIn. And companies are investing heavily in the futures of their employees. With next-gen technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and machine learning being leveraged by organisations, new roles that call for specific talent and relevant skills are coming up.