Mind the Gap!

The latest Future Skills Wales Survey states nearly 1 in 5 employers have complained that current staff lack the skills needed to do their jobs adequately, and a further 3 in 10 firms are not taking any measures to deal with the problem.

The publication of these figures has highlighted the serious skills shortage in Wales, and few Welsh firms understand this as well as t2 business solutions, an organisation that has been providing training solutions to South Wales for over a decade. t2 believe that investing in your staff and committing to their development is the key to combating this problem.

Rob Marr, Managing Director of t2 said “Very few people leave full time work to study for ‘generic’ skills such as, Management, Customer Service and Sales. These skills are essential to any organisation, but aren’t taught at school, or even at university. If you want your employees to acquire the skills they need to do their job effectively, then you need to commit to a development plan - understand what skills need attention, and concentrate on improving those areas.”

“However, there is a preconceived belief that investing in training is a risky business that does not guarantee any return on investment. In addition to this, some organisations are unsure on how effective offsite training is. This is largely due to the lack of training analysis, evaluation and feedback offered by training providers.”  

t2 have focused on removing this risk by building in pre- training analysis and post training evaluation and coaching as part of all their training packages. Each training course is tailored to the organisation and is designed specifically to improve performance, increase productivity and deliver a return on investment. Furthermore, the two post training coaching sessions help to ensure the skills obtained are being put into practice in the participants everyday environment.

Whilst Management, Customer Service and Sales were identified as the main areas of skills shortage in Wales, another area that seems to be causing concern is IT.  25% of the workforce in Wales have IT skill gaps and there is a need to improve the IT skills of more than 400,000 people in Wales. 

It seems that many of these people work in smaller organisations where IT training has not, in the past, seemed cost effective or time critical.  In order to address this problem t2 have developed a programme called IT Doctor. IT Doctor provides your organisation with the service of a fully qualified IT trainer who works with employees on a one on one basis, focusing on improving individuals’ IT skills.

t2 developed this programme with the aim of providing cost effective, relevant IT training to SME’s in South Wales.  Rob Marr said “Sometimes, all that is needed is some guidance on the key IT skills that employees require on a day to day basis. The IT Doctor helps to identify the areas that need attention, then devotes his time to educating the individual on all they need to learn.  This is achieved via a practical – ‘hands on’ approach in their office, at their own computer.”

It is time that organisations in Wales realise that improving the skills of your employees is not only important to you and your organisation, but important to Wales as an economy.  So make this year, the year of skills improvement and help your staff reach their potential in 2007 with t2 business solutions.

t2 business solutions specialises  in Training, Coaching and Business Support solutions, which all share one common goal – Delivering quantifiable value to our clients.