Exectuive-i Blog - Designed for the executive

The National Strategic Skills Audit report was published last week and I was particularly interested in their findings on the “high priority skills needs for immediate action”

A paragraph of particular interest is:

“Corporate managers as a group, and a range of specific management skills have been identified in a number of key sectors. The sectors are likely to include retail, business services/ computing/ digital media organisations, financial and professional services, health and social care, education, public administration and hospitality. Management and leadership covers a multitude of different core activities and behavioural competences, and includes leadership, change management, people management, financial management, risk management, negotiation and procurement skills requirements which must be delivered exceptionally well to fully respond to and exploit future challenges and ensure High Performance Working. This therefore explains the red rating.”

The findings unsurprisingly but worryingly highlight a number of key shortages in leadership, management and technical skills. A number of conclusions can be made from a career strategy perspective, and most importantly this highlights opportunities I’ve covered in previous blogs.

This report covers not only current but also future anticipated skills shortages, the corporate landscape is ever changing from a behavioural and technological perspective and this throws up continual corporate challenges. If you are looking for direction, you need to be asking yourself the question “can I offer the solution?”

a) If the answer is YES, you need to make sure you are marketing these skillsets effectively, highlighting tangible achievements

b) If the answer is NO, you need to adapt/ change your career strategy and decide how to upskill to meet these demands

I don’t think there is as big a skills shortage as made out in the current market, it is mainly a future concern and the report highlights this as a high priority due to the amount of time needed to address it. I speak to executives every week who have not fully realised they have the skillsets and experience necessary to provide companies with solutions in this area, they are focused on what they did rather than how they did it.

This oversight could go some way to addressing this shortage – you don’t necessarily need a qualification or specific training in these areas to have you these skillsets (although this undoubtably helps) – experience is often the most important aspect but there clearly needs to be a mindset ‘change’ both from ar a corporate and executive level to go some way to solving the future need.

However I must stress I am always looking at reports such as this to highlight the trends, opportunities and threats from a jobseeker/ career strategy perspective – this particular report mirrors concerns for the overall economy, these shortages need to be addressed, as well as the shortages in education, technology and research which a service based economy such as ours depends on.

I hope you have a productive week…