Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Blended learningLatest NewsLearning & developmentSkills shortagesTraining needs analysis

Firms ‘underutilising’ employees existing skills, report suggests

by Ashleigh Webber 25 Feb 2020
by Ashleigh Webber 25 Feb 2020 Image: Shutterstock
Image: Shutterstock

Organisations are not making full use of their employees’ skills, according to a report which claims six in 10 workers think their skills are underutilised at least half of the time.

Just 9% of 5,000 workers polled for City & Guilds’ Missing Millions report indicated that their full skillset was being used at work, while 8% felt their skills were always underutilised.

Skills development and experience

Majority of recruiters think candidates exaggerate skills

Overeducation blights careers across UK

Skills development: it’s time to revamp learning culture

The most common reason for staff feeling underutilised was the feeling that their job did not allow them to use all of their abilities (62%), while almost a third (31%) said it was because their employers were not aware of the skills they had. A fifth (21%) felt the skills their industry required had changed over time.

The report said employers needed to improve their ability at recognising and making use of their employees’ skills. It suggested the use of  “digital credentialing”, which it said allowed firms to easily recognise the “unknown” skills of their staff and create progression pathways within organisations or across industries.

“This presents a huge opportunity for employers to fully understand the range of skills they have within their organisations and make full use of them to push up productivity whilst at the same time increasing people’s feelings of being recognised and valued.

“As the workforce profile shifts, the ability to harness loyalty of staff and thereby drive up levels of retention is far more productive than redundancy and recruitment.”

Kirstie Donnelly, interim CEO at City & Guilds Group, said: “We are already lagging behind the other G7 countries when it comes to productivity so it’s critical that we address this challenge head on if we are to retain our status as a leading global economy post Brexit. Harnessing the full potential of the people who are already in work – and are yearning to learn – would be a significant step in the right direction.”

The report’s findings suggested that employers were not doing enough to address skills gaps. Almost half (47%) of employees said they had not taken part in any workplace training in the past three years, while more than a quarter (26%) had not done so for at least a decade.

Part-time workers, those aged 55 and over and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds were disproportionately affected by employers’ lack of investment in skills development.

People from more affluent socio-economic groups were much more likely (37%) to have received training in the past six months than those from less affluent socio-economic backgrounds (22%). They were also far less likely to state they had never received any workplace training (11%) than those who were from less affluent backgrounds (23%).

Only 61% of part-time workers had received training in the past five years, compared with 72% of those who worked full time.

“Over the past decade, we have witnessed continued cuts to adult education funding, which has meant that certain groups of people have effectively been ‘left behind’,” said Donnelly.

“As the impact of artificial intelligence and the fourth industrial revolution continues to totally reshape the labour market, we need to see urgent action from the government to reverse the decline of the lifelong learning sector – ensuring people in all areas have access to critical skills development and employers have access to the talent they so desperately need.”

The report recommended that employers, educators and the government develop programmes that meet the needs of today’s learners by making use of digital devices across all categories and blended learning opportunities.

Andy Durman, managing director at local labour market analyst Emsi UK, said: “We need to see education providers, economic developers and employers all coming together to promote the concept of lifelong learning, where people can add to their core skills throughout their working lives.”

The report also finds a strong correlation between training received and staff satisfaction, loyalty and confidence, and suggests that investment in L&D would help drive up retention and reduce the need for recruitment.

L&D job opportunities on Personnel Today

Browse more L&D jobs

Ashleigh Webber
Ashleigh Webber

Ashleigh is editor of OHW+ and HR and wellbeing editor at Personnel Today. Ashleigh's areas of interest include employee health and wellbeing, equality and inclusion and skills development. She has hosted many webinars for Personnel Today, on topics including employee retention, financial wellbeing and menopause support. Prior to joining Personnel Today in 2018, she covered the road transport sector for Commercial Motor and Motor Transport magazines, touching on some of the employment and wellbeing issues experienced by those in road haulage.

previous post
Share prices fall in response to coronavirus alarm
next post
Time for pay professionals to escape the back office

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

You may also like

Could micro-credentials help your business survive uncertainty?

26 May 2023

Collaboration and problem-solving identified among future work skills

25 May 2023

Report: AI will have impact on wage bargaining...

11 May 2023

Poor managers impact mental health and job satisfaction

3 May 2023

Employees who volunteer as magistrates build vital skills,...

21 Apr 2023

Lower-skilled workers miss out on training investment

19 Apr 2023

Employees more likely to stay if they can...

18 Apr 2023

Halving social care workforce funding ‘bitterly disappointing’

6 Apr 2023

Upskilling across generations: where employers must step in

5 Apr 2023

People analytics is HR’s biggest skills gap, finds...

4 Apr 2023

  • The HR Bundle: Your one-stop guide to building a successful global HR Department PROMOTED | Get your hands on Deel’s free HR bundle...Read more
  • The Benefits of an Employee Assistance Programme PROMOTED | EAPs support employees in a range of ways...Read more
  • Intergenerational working and how to manage up and down the generations PROMOTED | The benefits and challenges of intergenerational workplaces...Read more
  • Bereavement in the workplace: How training can help HR get it right PROMOTED | HR professionals play an essential role...Read more
  • UK workforce mental wellbeing needs PROMOTED | The mental wellbeing support employers are providing misses the mark...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2023

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2023 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+