A skills gap is when a person lacks the knowledge or skills to perform important tasks. In the workplace, this can be a mismatch between the skills a job requires and the skills an employee has. A skills gap can also refer to a shortage of qualified candidates for a job. Some sectors that have faced skills shortages include engineering, technology, and healthcare.
87% of companies either already have a skills gap in their organization, or know that they will within the next few years. Research shows the top three skills people are missing in the workplace are problem-solving and critical thinking, managing employees, and communication or interpersonal skills.
Types of skills gaps in the workplace include:
- Hard skills: Technical know-how
- Soft skills: Active listening, communication, empathy, conflict resolution, critical thinking, problem solving, attention to detail, leadership, and teamwork
- Managerial and supervisory skills: Skills related to managing teams and operations.
- Interpersonal skills: Skills used to interact effectively with others.
Some common examples of skill gaps in the workplace include:
- Emerging skills
- High demand skills
- Low-skilled labor
- Skills in declining demand
- Communication and empathy
- Critical thinking/problem solving
- Leadership and teamwork
Here are some ways employees can identify skills gaps:
- Define professional goals
- Ask colleagues
- Research in-demand skills
- Consult experts in the field
- Surround oneself with relevant information.
And here are ways organizations can address skills gaps:
- Hiring interns right out of university
- Leveraging eLearning for skills development
- Partnering with universities and schools
- Training current team members
- Offering bootcamps and mentorships
- Leveraging automation
- Honing communication skills
- Prioritizing empathy during recruitment
- Using the expertise of outside consultants
- Providing leadership training programs
- Encouraging team cohesion
This article is part of our guide on the skill gap.
Common Examples of Skill Gaps
#1 Emerging skills
When people in tech companies talk about the current skills gaps, this is the category that is usually the topic of conversation. Emerging technology fields are changing so quickly and continuously that there can’t help but be gaps related to new roles and expertise that just didn’t exist when today’s workforce was leaving school.
Think about positions like cybersecurity analysts, Kubernetes engineers for managing and maintaining cloud environments, and product-led growth experts. These are skills you just can’t learn at university – y’know, the ones where if you told your Dad about them, he’d nod vaguely and quickly ask if you saw the game at the weekend.
Filling these roles relies on workers receiving “on-the-job” training, and having the right background and knowledge base from experience, school or hobbies. Companies’ demand is currently at its peak for these jobs, and there just aren’t enough of the right people out there to fill that gap.
How can companies overcome the talent shortage?
- Hiring interns right out of university or even high school: There are many benefits of internships. The company gets the proverbial Tabula Rasa at below market rates, and employees can trial a career and be trained up in essential skills without the need to commit for the long term, and all without needing prior experience.
- Leveraging eLearning for skills development: Big names like Monday.com and Salesforce have launched bootcamps to get more people skilled and qualified for entry-level positions. These companies offer digital badging, certifications and accreditations that are valuable CV capital and help candidates to differentiate themselves.
- Partnering with universities and schools: Enterprises including IBM and Microsoft are moving a step back in the process and getting involved with educational institutions to encourage students to learn relevant skills before they join the workforce.
#2 High-demand skills
Slightly easier to find, but still contributing to these kinds of skill gaps examples are the roles which have already been in high demand for a number of years.
Think about digital marketing, software development, and SaaS sales roles. Oh yes, your Dad has probably heard of these. These are not new requirements to modern business, so the cause isn’t a lack of expertise, it’s that the average tenure of these jobs is declining rapidly. Employees are staying in these roles for an average of 1.8 years, far less than even a few years ago.
The real question here is how can we keep employees with high-demand skills engaged day after day, and year after year?
How can companies overcome the talent shortage?
- Training current team members: Companies in need of these high-demand skills need to help their talents develop a career path from day one. It’s up to the company to make their employees feel they can grow and develop in the company. However, you need to adapt your development pace to your audience. Gen Z expects to move to a new position every 12 months and to acquire new skills on a quarterly basis.
- Offering mentorships: Encourage high-demand talent in your company to mentor and train juniors, to both ensure that employees are continually adding strings to their bow and add more high-demand skilled talents to your company.
- Bootcamps: Unlike emerging skills, you do not need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to high-demand skills. There’s a variety of bootcamps, mainly coding bootcamps, that can help you either train new talent or hire new graduates.
#3 Low-skilled labor
Let’s take a step out of tech for a moment. Equally impacted by the skills shortage are low-skilled or low-wage labor positions.
Examples of these include warehouse and delivery employees for large retailers such as Amazon, workers in the shipping industry, and even waitstaff and busboys in restaurants and bars – especially in quick service and fast food industries. According to the National Restaurant Association, 78% of US restaurant owners report they don’t have enough employees in place to meet their current customer demand.
How can companies overcome the talent shortage?
- Leveraging automation: The solution for low-skilled labor is often automation, adding smart digital processes behind the scenes that can take the place of low-wage labor positions. Automation can streamline tasks in manufacturing plants or for shipping and logistics companies, and even work back of house in restaurants to clean plates and serve food ready for consumers.
#4 Skills in declining demand
On one side of the equation, we have already discussed skills that are growing too quickly for people to fill their gaps. However, on the other side, there are many skills that have declining demand in the market.
For many years these kinds of jobs have been becoming less valued, less well-paid, and less sought after as career options. As more employees retire, this has created an ironic skills gap in the workforce. Hey! We need some people to know this stuff!
For example, not enough people are working to become infrastructure programmers. Labor skills analytics firm, Emsi, found examples of what they call perishable skills. “R, Agile, Unix — platform- or organization-specific tools or languages that remain important for some but are increasingly volatile. Fluency in these programs takes a back seat to more durable and stable skills.”
Other examples of roles that are suffering from perishable skills are civil engineers, and government procurement officers, both job descriptions that are becoming alarmingly sparse.
How can companies overcome the talent shortage?
Looking for a fix to this challenge? It can be helpful to group skills into clusters, so that if an employee takes a course on programming, they learn the basics or the foundational (yet more volatile) skills alongside the sexier or more in-demand programming languages. This ensures that you have staff on-tap who have a well-rounded understanding of their industry and their role, even in the elements of that job which are being phased out over time.
#5 Communication and empathy
Collaboration between team members and different departments requires effective communication. However, with many workers focusing on their own technical tasks and often racing to meet deadlines, interpersonal communication can be overlooked. This can be exacerbated by cultural and generational differences. Maybe some employees are not native English speakers and don’t grasp the nuances.
Related to communication is the issue of empathy. Team members need to be willing to help each other, sometimes inconveniencing themselves for the sake of a colleague. Not everyone knows how to express empathy or prioritize shared responsibilities. Hey, can anyone help me out?
Areas that require a high degree of empathy and communication skills include retail, hospitality, and healthcare, where it’s important to make customers feel comfortable and to quickly understand the needs and wants of a diverse range of people.
How can companies overcome the talent shortage?
- Honing communication skills: To address the shortage of communication skills, companies can provide training exercises and guidelines to help teams improve their communication. For example, there could be company protocols for how to handle sensitive situations, such as a rift between workers or complaints from a customer.
- Prioritizing empathy during recruitment: It can also be helpful to look out for communication skills when hiring. Face-to-face interviews are useful for gauging an individual’s empathy levels and expressiveness, in addition to gleaning what they value. For some roles, especially client-facing ones, employers should look for candidates with strong interpersonal skills.
#6 Critical thinking and problem solving
The ability to think critically and find solutions to unusual problems is critical for many industries. Architects, engineers, and programmers, in particular, must be able to respond to unexpected issues and think outside the box. These skills are often acquired over many years of experience and cannot simply be taught through a course.
Sometimes, an expert is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of an organization’s procedures or to supervise the team. Maybe you need someone to provide a fresh perspective on what needs fixing. Unfortunately, it can be hard to come by employees with sufficient experience and know-how to handle diverse problems. These high-demand individuals can also be expensive to hire.
How can companies overcome the talent shortage?
- Using the expertise of outside consultants: In some cases, it makes sense to leverage the experience and knowledge of a consultant to help solve problems and assess the company’s existing processes. External specialists can apply their unique skills to specific problems that arise occasionally, but not often enough to justify hiring an expensive expert full-time.
#7 Leadership and teamwork
Not just sports teams, but also workforce teams, need to demonstrate teamwork and have strong leadership. These skills include the ability to cooperate, take initiative, and motivate fellow team members to perform their best.
Whether it’s a tech company or restaurant, it’s important to have everyone working towards a common goal. Projects are shared, and so are successes and failures. Likewise, there needs to be someone who can take the reins and steer the group when needed. Can I speak to the manager?
How can companies overcome the talent shortage?
- Providing leadership training programs: There are many courses and mentorships that seek to build leadership skills. Often, schools and universities offer such programs to students, but private companies can also offer internships to students, while other programs can help improve the leadership skills of existing employees.
- Encouraging team cohesion: Companies often offer team building activities to build trust and improve the rapport between workers. This improves the ability of the team to work as a cohesive bloc and can also improve job satisfaction by adding a little fun into the mix.
How Can Employees Identify Skills Gaps?
While employers are usually the ones responsible for identifying and addressing skills gaps in their teams, employees can also play their part in recognizing areas for improvement. By understanding how they can grow their skills, employees can improve their standing within the company and among their colleagues, potentially increasing their salary.
It’s also important for workers to be vigilant regarding the skills required in their line of work. An employee that isn’t continuously improving will eventually start falling behind, and maybe even hold the whole team back. Thus, it’s essential for employers and employees alike to be able to identify skills gaps and work towards improving them.
Let’s look at some of the measures employees can use to identify skills gaps:
- Define professional goals: Establish clear career objectives.
- Ask colleagues: Gather information on required skills from peers, such as what knowledge is required for each task.
- Research in-demand skills: Stay informed about industry trends.
- Consult experts in the field: Seek specific advice from industry professionals.
- Look for relevant information: Continuously update knowledge on skills requirements.
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