adr international Procurement consultants

Plugging the skills gap

A severe skills shortage is threatening to hold back the economic upturn. Rebecca Howard suggests a way to tackle the challenge.

The green shoots are beginning to appear and everyone is crossing their fingers that the recession may be coming to an end. But there's a problem looming on the horizon.

According to the UK's Financial Times, there are widespread fears that a lack of properly qualified staff may slow down the recovery. Despite frighteningly high unemployment levels, several crucial business functions are experiencing skills shortages. These include internal audit, credit control - and procurement.

Companies, says the FT, fear this could harm their competitiveness in a recovery and warn that the UK will find it hard to keep up with rising international standards.

"If we have got shortages even during as bad a recession as we have had in 40 years, what the hell is going to happen to the labour market on the other side of this?" asked Kevin Green, chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Federation.

The good news is that, unlike in previous recessions, training spend has remained consistent in recent months. According to the government-led UK Commission for Employment and Skills, the number of highly-skilled people has risen by more than a third in the last 10 years, while the total without qualifications has fallen by a quarter.

But the Commission says urgent action is needed to prevent the UK falling behind international competitors. It urges a "simpler and more agile training system".

This conclusion makes a lot of sense. Tools such as eLearning, for example, provide just-in-time training to meet specific skills needs.

In the procurement area, as in other functions, eLearning has developed fast in the last few years, becoming more tailored to individual or company needs and targeting specific skills areas such as cost analysis.

In the age of the internet, such solutions seem to fit the bill for fast, responsive, easily adaptable and highly-targeted skills development.

After all, as Jim Hillage of the Institute for Employment Studies said, responding to specific gaps could make a critical difference. The future, he said, would depend on "how responsive the system is, how quickly it can adapt to emerging bottlenecks."

Rebecca Howard is Director of ADR Learning, the training and development division of ADR International

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