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    • Action plan

    Filling the skill gaps in your business

    Medium effort

    Medium impact

    Factors outside of your control, such as changing consumer habits, development of new technologies or particular regulations, mean it's important to stay abreast of the skills your business has and doesn't have as it looks towards the future. While working this out might sound intimidating, it will allow you to focus on the skills that have the greatest potential to help your business in the short term.

    • We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
    • Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline
    What's involved? Ways to use this action plan Measuring impact
    1

    Spend some time learning about how other businesses have gone about building skillsets within the organisation

    Impact: low

    Why will this help?

    Learning from the experiences and lessons of fellow business leaders is the best way to direct your own improvement efforts.

    Help your staff with upskilling or they’ll look elsewhere

    By helping staff achieve their working ambitions, companies that prioritise the upskilling of current and new employees find that staff stay longer and can help boost overall productivity.
    2

    Define, or revisit to update, the strategic goals your business has for the next 1, 3 and 5 years

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    Identifying skill gaps in your business can inform your business strategy and help you plan for the future, but you need to know where the new requirements are based on the direction you want your business to be going in.

    How to identify skill gaps in your business
    3

    Using your strategic goals, establish the skills your company's people will need to have for these goals and targets to be met – such as language ability, technical development, project management, etc

    Impact: high

    Why will this help?

    If it's developing an ecommerce offering, then digital skills will be needed. If it's overseas expansion then some language capability might be required. This is where your ability to execute on strategic goals, large or small, start to meet new requirements.

    4

    Conduct a skills gap analysis to see which of the skills needed to meet your strategic goals are currently held by members of your team and which need to be brought in

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    Using a tried-and-tested template will help you establish the skill gaps and work out where to go next.

    Analysing the skills you'll need in the future

    Looking at the skills you might need in the future helps leaders to plan and stay ahead of the curve.
    5

    Build out a plan to upskill relevant members of your team, whether it's through training or increased responsibility, and establish which new hires will be required

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    Upskilling your employees is vital for filling skill gaps and boosting your company's productivity. A plan will help set in motion this effort but also establish some expectation setting relating to how long certain new skills will take to bring into the business or cultivate within.

    Your guide to upskilling your employees

    Upskilling is vital to develop employees and ensure your business remains relevant.

    What can I do with this Action Plan?

    Start this Action Plan

    Add some extra information to this plan and we’ll help you get it done.

    • We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
    • Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline

    Download and print

    Get a printable template for this Action Plan, fill it in with some target dates, and share it with your team. Pin it on the wall where everyone can see it.

    Get the printable Action Plan

    Learning Groups

    We also run Learning Groups on these topics where you can join other leaders tackling the same challenges.

    Find a Learning Group

    How will I know if my action plan is working?

    Staff satisfaction survey results

    Staff satisfaction surveys help gauge sentiment at regular intervals

    Why this metric?

    Whether gathered anonymously or not, staff satisfaction surveys help gauge the sentiment of your people as changes are made and impacts felt.

    How do I start tracking?

    Use an online survey to get feedback from members of staff three and six months after making changes to see what impact it has had.