Businesses Must Take Five Crucial Steps to Close the Skills Gap

87% of employers struggle with the skills gap

TRUMBULL, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Employers have a big problem. There’s a gap between the skills they need and those available in the workforce.¹ Questionmark, the online assessment provider, has identified five crucial steps employers can take to close the workforce skills gap.

An ever-increasing role for technology is one of the major reasons that the skills workers need are changing. New skills are required to make the most of it. At the same time, workers need to develop a new range of emotional and cognitive skills that empowers them to take the roles that machines will never fill. These essential skills include creativity, emotional intelligence and critical thinking according to research from the World Economic Forum.²

Closing the skills gap: five crucial steps

1. Identify priority skills – employers must establish which specific skills are going to drive future growth.
2. Pinpoint areas of weakness – by establishing where crucial skills are missing, employers can focus training and support.
3. Discover areas of strength – identifying which team members excel at specific skills will enable employers to identify champions and mentors.
4. Tailor training – understanding the individual development needs of each team member will enable employers to focus and tailor training.
5. Check the effectiveness of training – employers must establish whether their learning and development strategies are working and improve them if staff don’t learn the required skills.

Measuring the strength of current skills among the workforce with online assessments will help employers make meaningful decisions about closing the skills gap. The results of the assessment will pinpoint areas of strength and weakness. Employers can then focus training where it is most needed. Testing participants after training will show whether it has been successful.

Lars Pedersen, CEO of Questionmark, said: “Technology has been transforming business processes for many years. The pandemic has accelerated the trend. Employers need workers who can do the things that technology can’t. And for that, many will need a whole new range of skills.

“Assessments give employers the information they need to implement robust learning and development programs. By better understanding which team members need more support and whether that support is working, they can close the skills gap and ensure they have what they need to thrive.”

www.questionmark.com

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Notes to editors

About Questionmark

Questionmark unlocks performance through reliable and secure online assessments.

Questionmark provides a secure enterprise-grade assessment platform and professional services to leading organizations around the world, delivered with care and unequalled expertise. Its full-service online assessment tool and professional services help customers to improve their performance and meet their compliance requirements. Questionmark enables organizations to unlock their potential by delivering assessments which are valid, reliable, fair and defensible.

Questionmark offers secure powerful integration with other LMS, LRS and proctoring services making it easy to bring everything together in one place. Questionmark's cloud-based assessment management platform offers rapid deployment, scalability for high-volume test delivery, 24/7 support, and the peace-of-mind of secure, audited U.S., Australian and European-based data centers.

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¹ https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/to-emerge-stronger-from-the-covid-19-crisis-companies-should-start-reskilling-their-workforces-now
² https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-10-skills-you-need-to-thrive-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/