February 2010 Bridging Skills Gap – Free – ASTD

Click on the link above and you’ll be taken to the original source article for the statistics provided below.  The charts themselves came from a newsletter called Workforce Training.  The percentages in bold are my emphasis.  Scary statistics but fixable.

Did I mention we conduct skills gap analysis and custom training to address the gaps?

SKILL GAPS Seventy-nine percent of 1,179 companies surveyed by the American Society for Training & Development said they had a skill gap. The respondents listed their highest priority gaps as:

Skills of the current workforce do not match changes in company strategy, goals, markets or business models: 51% Not enough bench strength in the company’s leadership ranks: 40% Recent merger/acquisition where the organization brought in new employees or current employees are not up to speed on the new industry: 35 Training investments have been cut or there is lack of commitment by senior leaders to employee learning and development: 27 When hiring for certain types of jobs, there are too few qualified candidates (i.e., a gap in the pipeline): 25% Lack of skilled talent in one or more of the company’s lines of business: 21%

Source: “Bridging the Skills Gap,” American Society for Training & Development, 2009

WHERE THE GAPS ARE The same companies listed these as their greatest skill needs:

Leadership/executive level skills: 50% Basic skills (traditional building blocks of business-level competencies): 46% Professional or industry-specific skills: 41% Managerial/supervisory skills: 31 Customer service skills: 31 Communication/interpersonal skills: 31 Technical/IT/systems skills: 30 Sales skills: 30 Process and project management skills: 20 Other: 43

Source: “Bridging the Skills Gap,” American Society for Training & Development, 2009