Agata Zasada - Director of talent operations, Hootsuite
Working as part of a larger team that includes “development” as a goal, point of view or ethos is essential. No one bridges the skills gap alone.
There are many ways to look at skill gaps, especially in tech. The first step in closing the gap is identifying the priorities of the organization. For example, some people are extremely technical, but lack the leadership skills that will support them in a management role. Other times, we have entry-level employees who need to further develop their technical abilities to be successful. In each case, we have to look at the needs and priorities of the organization to decide where to best use our resources. We use many gauges to develop these priorities: employee engagement surveys, leader feedback, needs assessments and organizational direction.
Once you’ve identified priorities, you can begin to tackle how you will fill those skill gaps. One option is to outsource learning. Outsourcing has many benefits, including cost savings, and it requires less internal effort. Some skills needing to be developed are specific to the individual organization. In this case, creating content in-house may be the right option.
Depending on the size of your organization, you may have a team dedicated to learning and development. At Hootsuite, we have people dedicated to developing our employees in areas such as leadership, change management and best sales practices.
The key is to develop a clear understanding of what is right for your company to be able to empower employees to achieve organizational success.
Doug Turner - Principal, True Balance Coaching
I have long held the view that the most effective way to transfer relevant, up-to-date, applicable skills and knowledge among employees is through mentoring. This can take many forms and there are innovative ways to approach this, especially with younger workers who are now demanding to be taught, quickly, how to succeed in their careers. Mentoring is definitely the most cost-effective training method because there is often no incremental cost involved and much of the activity can be done on the job, incorporated into the work environment, so there is little or no disruption.
Most people associate mentoring with the idea that more senior staff pass on their knowledge and experience to younger, less experienced staff by giving them advice and guidance with specific aspects of their job. However, peer-to-peer mentoring, where mentoring is done among equals, and even bottom-up (“reverse”) mentoring, where younger staff mentor more senior staff, have been shown to be very effective if managed properly.
Perhaps most effective is establishing an environment where ideas are shared freely and constructively among staff. This is more easily said than done but the key is building a trusting group mentality in which everybody feels they will benefit by helping the others. When someone describes something innovative, or seeks help with an idea, and the audience (one or more people) welcomes such input as constructive and useful, there can be no greater “accelerator” for the skills acquisition process.
Erin Silo - Marketing manager, nTrust
In a startup, the only constant is how quickly things change. New projects, objectives and opportunities crop up every day, and we all need to be able to adapt to new and varied circumstances.
We help employees step up to the plate with new tasks or projects by encouraging collaboration. I meet with my team frequently to check in on progress and talk about challenges. The goal is to be as supportive as possible, and urge employees to ask questions or seek help. Encouraging dialogue means that everyone has the chance to learn and experiment without fear of getting his or her knuckles rapped.
Communication isn’t just an internal practice. We also value customer feedback, and work closely with our customer service team to learn the positives and negatives of our users’ experiences. Then we adapt. That’s how we handle internal relationships, too. Any negatives are treated as learning opportunities that allow us to make better decisions. We’ve basically perfected trial and error.
The bottom line is that bridging any skills gap is 50% environment and 50% individual. Adaptable, innovative employees thrive in a startup. Those who love the corporate repetition of completing a set task list every day? They might not do as well. The employee has to be willing to learn, and we’ll take care of providing opportunities to allow that.
Startup life isn’t for everyone, but I enjoy a sense of investment in what I do, and I share that with the company. Knowing that we’re a team empowers us to take on any task that may come our way.
Charlyne Fothergill - Director of career services, Lighthouse Labs
I absolutely believe that training and development needs to be part of your company's growth plan, there simply is not enough talent. This is particularly true in the technology sector when it comes developers. Lighthouse Labs and other bootcamps are exciting because we're helping put more job ready devs in the market at a quicker rate. At this point providing training and mentorship becomes key to getting them to become a contributing member of your team as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The biggest mistake I see is companies thinking they can just "wing" it. Simply having a Junior Developer shadow a Senior and hope that the skills will be organically transferred via osmosis is not going to ensure effective training and development. You don't need a formal HR consultant training plan but some organization of thought, a plan and direction is key. There are many ways (and Google results) in regard to the how of approaching training and how to break down work within your teams to ensure skills and knowledge transfer.
I'm also a huge fan of looking at outside training to provide your current staff with the missing skills your organization needs. This is a great recognition and retention tool, particularly for millennials who value ongoing learning and development. Grants like BC-Canada Job Grant will pay up to 2/3 for companies to send their new and current staff to training. At Lighthouse we've seen this grant be used for several companies to enhance non development positions with technical skills and train staff to become developers.
