HR’s focus turns to upskilling, says research

Research this month has shown that HR professional’s priorities are now turning toward learning and development and upskilling as business seek to address the continuing lack of talent in the labour market.

Fosway Group’s HR Realities Research 2022, the results of which will be presented on Personnel Today’s webinar this week, shows that as the lack of availability of talent begins to bite, reskilling and upskilling, employee retention and digital transformation have surged up HR’s priority list, when compared to 2021.

Almost all European HR respondents (95%) said the availability of talent as their most significant business challenge, and the research shows that HR priorities have realigned to address skills shortages.

Skills challenges have elevated strategic workforce planning as a lever for HR success. Respondents said the most important factors for the future success of HR teams are leadership and people management (68%), change management (64%), business consulting (45%), coaching (44%) and strategic workforce planning (42%). The research shows a shift to more of an influencing approach by HR as business consulting and coaching overtake business partnering, moving from 4th in 2021 to 10th place this year.

David Perring, director of research at Fosway Group, said: “Skills really are the number one game in town, according to this year’s HR Realities Research. Not only are they key to solving the shortage of available talent, they are also critical for the employee experience.

“HR teams also see skills development as the number one initiative to help futureproof the organisation. But are HR solutions able to live up to expectations of a modern employee experience?”

Perring joins Personnel Today editor Rob Moss on this Thursday’s webinar, in association with SumTotal, as they focus on L&D strategies that are good enough to retain talent in 2023.

Also on the panel, Mike Smith, learning operations manager at Direct Line Group, will provide first-hand experience of how the insurance company is changing its approach to staff development.

For the first time since Fosway’s research began in 2014, employee experience is now seen as the top driver for HR’s future success, followed by HR data, employer brand and values, the integration of HR and business systems and strategic influencing. HR teams report they have C-Suite backing to improve the employee experience, with 65% saying they have complete or significant support, and only 8% saying they don’t have buy-in.

However, the research shows there is a long way to go to deliver on this, with only 17% of HR teams describing their employee experience as irresistible.

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“It’s very fashionable in HR to use the ‘experience’ label,” said David Wilson, CEO Fosway Group. “But what does it mean really? This research shows creating a great employee experience remains a huge challenge for employers because it is so much more than simply creating a great user experience for HR systems. That is important but so are all the other human factors that drive the experience.”

Learn more about improving your L&D strategy in our exclusive on-demand webinar