You have now identified what your current workforce looks like, and what your future workforce needs to look like. It’s time to compare the two – what’s different? What do you need more of, or less of? Comparing what you have with what you need will help you identify any gaps in the skills, capability and capacity of your workforce. It will help you develop strategies to reduce the gap between your current workforce, and the workforce of the future.

Gap analysis: What are your pressing workforce gaps?

What are the gaps in core, functional and role-specific skills?

What priority would you give each gap?

What types of things could you do to address each gap?

Who should be responsible for addressing each gap?

When do these gaps need to be addressed by, and what resources do you have to address them?

Developing your workforce plan

After you have identified the gaps, you will be equipped to develop a strategy for building your future workforce.

It is useful to document the specific workforce development activities that you need to do in order to grow the capability, capacity and productivity of your workforce.

When developing your workforce strategy, you should think about the areas that need to be changed, managed and developed. These will fall across the following focus areas:

Planning

How do you plan for and understand the current and future demands of your workforce?

Engagement and recruitment

How do you get the right people, and from where?

Support and development

What are the different types of training and education opportunities that will meet your needs and the needs of staff?

Reward, recognition and retention

How will you build a positive culture and workplace, and keep talented staff working for you?

Leadership and communication

How will you lead your teams and develop this capacity within the organisation?

Determining your learning and development needs

You will have identified a number of workforce needs, including building up the capability of existing and new staff to do the work you need them to do.

Training is a great way of addressing performance and skill gaps. Engaging in a training cycle with your staff will ensure they develop where it is most beneficial for them and for the business.

Training is good for business when it strongly supports business requirements.

When a business has identified its skill requirements and is considering opportunities to train and upskill staff, there are a number of options to consider. These include:

Apprenticeship programmes

Traineeship programmes

Upskilling, cross-skilling and re-skilling programmes

Customised training programmes addressing the specific skill requirements of a business

Recognition of prior learning processes

On- and off-the-job learning opportunities

Project work

Shadowing, coaching and mentoring

Self-directed learning.

Talk to us

 Get in touch to talk with one of our regional advisors about your training needs. 

P   0508 4 SKILLS (0508 475 4557)

E   info@skillsactive.org.nz