Feature


launch – it’s time for a press release! A ss rfie cd he s nderstand


whether we have that skill in the marketing team. Someone might have it at a low level that needs improvement before they can deliver what we need for this project. Maybe we don’t have that talent in the marketing team but someone in sales has a PR background and we can borrow their skills for the length of the project. Without a ss rfie  end  est guessing or just not knowing.


1. Identify your current problems and skills gaps We already discussed it, but there’s often too much attention on what’s happening at a global level and too little focus on the local level. Understanding the external environment is absolutely essential and we’ll get to that, but if you’re in the business of driving performance and impact, r first rt f ca needs t e nterna data and challenges. Performance data can highlight areas


where skills are lacking. Maybe the sales team isn’t creating enough pipeline or the reach of your marketing materials is below where it needs to be, these numbers can help you spot knowledge and skills gaps. So too can a good understanding of


current challenges. When individual people are doing their day-to-day roles, which problems are they commonly encountering, and what stops them solving those? When departments take on a new project, where are they light on skills?


2. Foster the relationships needed to truly understand missing skills Resolving the issue won’t be possible over a long period without good relationships. There’ll be times when you need absolute honesty, strong buy-in, or access to insights that others are the gatekeepers for. Ensuring you have positive relationships makes your upskilling and reskilling job easier.


64 | learnevents.com Y ou can’ t


4. Build the knowledge and talent internally Next, it’s essentially a case of understanding the knowledge, information, and skills needed to build the required talents. Whether it’s following that data or easrn the ss rfie e hae an exact understanding of the challenge or gap, and we can build learning experiences to solve or close them.


identify or close skill gaps b ased on assumptions, so you need the relevant, specific data to guide you


 d a rfie f crrent ss and rficenc ees We’re looking to solve problems and plug gaps at speed. And one thing that’s guaranteed to help us do that is a record or database of the skills in your company and h rficent ee are n the You can’t identify or close skill gaps based on assumptions, so you need that data to guide you. At HowNow, for instance, e se a fient scae t d a s rfie and nderstand rficenc sn 360 feedback and assessing these at regular intervals, they’re able to build a ss rfie that ees er te Let’s take an example where this might be useful. For instance: we’re a marketing team with a new product


5. Predicting change and future skills you might need Now we’ve reached the point most people start with, but we can still approach it slightly differently! And that’s essentially by starting with a smaller external environment – what are the trends pointing towards in your industry? Where’s the local/industry- secfic data  can a n the cntext f your business? One more example? Instead of


approaching from a standpoint of: “There’s a global digital skills gap, we need to build more digital skills” how about “Our industry’s seeing more people buy online than ever”? The latter translates, in business terms, to: chat support is going to increase and telephone support will head the other way. And so it’s safe to conclude in a skills context that: “it is likely, therefore, that our staff  need t e rficent n an customer service principles digitally.” The second option is obviously more useful. It provides context we can act on, and f ee dne the first fr stes crrect we can also understand how pressing this is – and how we move forward.n


Gary Stringer is Senior Content Marketing Manager at HowNow


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