Articles | Identifying and Managing Skill Shortages

 

 

 

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Identifying and Managing Skill Shortages

 

 

 

 

 

Ramping up your team’s capability to service projects can lead to poor decision making and increased risks. How can you implement an ongoing structured program that provides proactive upskilling so that when opportunity knocks you and your company are ready to succeed?

Working with contractors right across the country provides a comprehensive view of the industry’s current issues and challenges. One key issue that the industry continues to face is an increased risk profile on projects stemming from management skill shortages for leading hands, supervisors, engineers and managers. It is a significant challenge across all states and exacerbated in some regions where workforces are rapidly increasing due to the COVID response.

There is no one root cause of these skill shortages, however, contributing factors include unstructured and rapid career progression, staff turnover, outdated internal competency building programs and annual review processes that miss the mark.

As a growing industry fuelled by government investment, there will likely be periods of significant and rapid growth. For your average business, while growth is positive, this can stretch existing resources which in turn leads to a reactive, unstructured rapid growth in personnel. This “work it out as we go” strategy then leads to new leading hands, supervisors and managers making key decisions without the appropriate knowledge, training and experience increasing the chance for mistakes and an increased risk profile.

Similarly, performance review and appraisal processes that lack depth and take the form of a tick-box exercise fuel these risks within your business. A strong performance review process involves both parties - manager and staff member - identifying key areas of development for them to achieve their current role to a higher level in addition to positioning them for the next role in the business. With these skills gaps identified, implementing a program to build competencies in these areas across your supervisors, managers and leaders builds organisation-wide capability, helping to position the company for growth.

The Institute of Civil Infrastructure exists as a response to the civil industry identifying this ongoing issue. It has been created for the industry and by the industry.

Support your performance appraisals, supervisor onboarding and management training programs through The Institute’s flexible and accessible Learning Courses. With a range of 75 industry-developed short courses (2-4 hours), the targeted upskilling needed to build capability and decrease risk within your supervisory team is covered. As opposed to generic and time-consuming diplomas and certificates, you have the ability to choose what learning is best suited to your team based on their identified areas of development, providing them the skills they need.

 

 

 

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