1. The Recruitment Crisis

Today’s workplace is changing more quickly than ever before. Technological advances, political developments and social trends continue to throw up fresh challenges, but also opportunities. We began this new year with a presentation of our top 8 workplace trends for 2018. Now we’ll be exploring each of these trends in more depth in a series of blogs: starting with the importance of upskilling and retraining talent.

A recruitment crisis has been brewing for a while now: in America, over 6 million job openings remain unfilled because suitable candidates cannot be found. In Britain, the advent of Brexit is going to shrink the pool of available talent. But fortunately the answer is right under everybody’s noses: employers must focus more on retraining and upskilling their existing staff.

Upskilling can solve the recruitment crisis.

2. The Skills Revolution

Companies used to build talent but now they tend to consume work – this has to change. Talent is what keeps companies competitive. Furthermore, talent has to be continuously refreshed. Job specifications are changing more quickly now, and skills cycles growing shorter and shorter. Many of the jobs of the future don’t even exist yet.

Jonas Prising, Chairman of the Manpower Group, has a term for what’s going on:

“We are seeing the emergence of a Skills Revolution – where helping people upskill and adapt to a fast-changing world of work will be the defining challenge of our time. Those with the right skills will increasingly call the shots, create opportunities and choose how, where and when they work.” 

So, in order to flourish, companies must be prepared to evolve – and the most agile will be adapting already, in order to stay one step ahead. To make the most of the Skills Revolution, there are three key things companies must do:

• Fast-track the upskilling of their employees.
• Draw in employees that are not fully participating in the workforce.
• Stay constantly abreast of new roles and the new skills that they’ll involve.

3. Upskilling and Purpose

“We should automate work and humanise jobs. Let’s give the mundane to the machines and the purpose back to people.” The Right Honourable Matt Hancock MP

Here at Spacestor, we 100% believe in upskilling the talent that already exists in every company. It’s worked very well for us and for many of the leading companies that we work with. Additionally, it’s not only good for employers, but also good for employees who want to gather new skills and further their careers. What makes somebody really employable is not what they know today, but what they’ll be able to learn tomorrow – and so, having the opportunity to learn and improve is one of the most important factors for attracting the best employees to, and keeping them at, a company.

Likewise, great workplace design also helps to attract and retain talent. At Spacestor we’ve always been dedicated to creating spaces that inspire employees while also providing them with all of the highly flexible spaces, resources and technology that they need to succeed. An upskilled workforce, in a stylishly refreshed office setting, will completely transform a company: not from the outside in, but the inside out.