Is The UK Fit For Businesses?

The skills level of Britain has become something of a regular thing in the press, with the subject gaining more emphasis since the Leitch Review of Skills earlier this year. This month the main political parties have said that nearly half of pupils at primary schools are leaving without the required level of academic attainment. Channel 4 are also generating awareness of this growing problem by creating a childhood literacy season that is promoted by celebrities to try to bring the message home. This is a scary prospect for all areas of business as the skills gap between the UK and other countries widens.

This year the CBI commissioned their twelfth annual report called Fit for Business and it had many key findings that proved for some interesting reading. Firstly, organisations see training as a priority as they want to address the lack of skills in their workforce. It stated that organisations do not mind investing in their people, however, they do feel it is not their place or acceptable to train basic development skills that should have been attained while at school. Other than basic needs, the top training requirements identified were for a higher level of skills, with a strong focus on people management and leadership.

HR specialists have known for years that an organisationís skills and knowledge levels have a direct impact on how economically effective they are and it seems that the rest of the business world have also put the two together. As a result, training within organisations has had a strong emphasis placed on it, which will have a large, positive impact in many HR departments.

For years, HR departments have had to struggle in getting the go ahead for development initiatives due to the overall cost to the organisation. That problem seems to be outdated and HR departments now find that one of the best methods to design and implement development initiatives is by using external providers. Righttrack Consultancy, a learning and development specialist with over 20 years experience in the industry, says that the report findings support the growing trend that they are experiencing. Righttrackís Managing Director, Kasmin Cooney says, ìTraditionally, many organisations have placed the development of their people on the back burner and because of this, as the report illustrates, the skills gap between us and other countries has widened. However, the change in the behaviour towards people development is great news for everyone and if this remains to be the case and carried out properly, UK businesses will be reaping the rewards in years to come.î

In fact, 91% of CBI survey respondents who use external suppliers prefer private learning and development specialists because they rate the following aspects higher compared with other providers, such as universities and government initiatives:

o Relevance of training
o Delivery
o Quality
o Location
o Overall level of responsiveness to training requirements

Additionally, two thirds of respondents invested in development programmes that were not recognised qualifications, which support the move towards external development specialists creating bespoke initiatives. This is because many organisations see development initiatives developed specifically for their organisation as more effective compared with general qualification training.

Overall, this is great news for the UK economy; development is vital to success and it doesnít matter which method is chosen the fact that training is now a priority can only bring huge benefits to employees, HR departments and all UK organisations.