Skills Shortage

A group of entrepreneurs and I were having a discussion about some of the biggest challenges in business today and skills shortage came up. No surprise, it always does.

My thought was ‘has there ever not been a skills shortage?’. One of the key concepts in creating a successful business is differentiation. If two businesses do exactly the same thing then they have created a commodity. So successful businesses have to be at the leading edge in some way. That means doing stuff that hasn’t been done before, in a way that hasn’t been done before. So, there must, by definition, be a skills shortage.

When Henry Ford started the first production line, there were a pool of people, but no one had experience of working on a production line. A couple  of hundred years ago when coal was being mined here in my part of the world, the colliery owners had to not only find the labour but had to build houses and even towns to accommodate them. When there was a world war and all the men went away to fight, we found innovative ways to fill the shortage that created, and we did.

There will always be a skills shortage. The question is what can you do about it? Be aware that your job isn’t to solve the skills shortage but to make sure that you have a plentiful supply of the right people with the right skills to satisfy your customers.

In fact if you can dominate the market for skilled labour, can there ever be a better competitive advantage?

So, the questions for today are:

• On a scale of 0 to 10 how high a priority is developing the skills of your team?
• What does it cost you to lose a skilled team member and to have to replace them?
• What is your churn or retention rate among key people?
• What must you do to improve that figure?
• When will you start?

If you need any help, reach out

Many successful business owners eventually hit a wall on growth and struggle to climb it alone. When you work with me you get a fresh perspective, a solid plan, and customised coaching so you can grow and scale your business safely and at speed.

To check whether I can help you on that journey https://calendly.com/iankinnery/canweworktogether