Seizing the opportunity to close the skills gap

Editor’s note: The following article was originally published on March 1, 2023 by Financial Management magazine. It is reprinted with permission.

BY PAUL TURNER

There is a widening gap between the skills employers need and those workers have, recent AICPA and CIMA research found.

I’m a great believer that every challenge is really an opportunity. It is no secret that employers are struggling to recruit staff with the right skills for their organizations. If we could find a way of resolving that shortage, companies would be able to grow more easily, and their employees would have more opportunities for professional advancement.

AICPA & CIMA’s research into the future direction of the accounting and finance profession has highlighted the importance of continually learning, unlearning, and relearning skills. This is because the modern workplace is evolving rapidly as a result of digitisation and changes to working practices that developed during the pandemic, such as remote working. The productivity gains that could result from exploiting the opportunities of the new business environment make the process of continued upskilling worthwhile for both workers and their employers. Unfortunately, the skills gap — the disparity between the skills the workforce has and the skills employers need — is currently widening, according to AICPA and CIMA research released in February.

In the UK, one of the markets I lead for AICPA and CIMA, we commissioned polling which found that 82% of SME employers identified skills gaps within their organization in the past 12 months. When this question was last asked in 2020 the figure was 65%. This is a global problem. McKinsey & Co. research from 2021 showed that 87% of companies were experiencing skills gaps or expected to within a few years.

I want to stress that it would be utterly wrong to solely blame employers for this. On the contrary, the employers we polled showed a real desire to upskill their workforce themselves. A total of 54% of employers favored developing employees in-house, either by recruiting individuals with the right personal qualities and attitude and upskilling them internally (30%) or developing their own employees rather than recruiting from outside (24%). Only a fifth (21%) preferred to recruit high performers with experience from other organizations.

Employers don’t just say they want to upskill their employees, a great many of them are doing it. We should celebrate how hard they are working to do this. Nearly four-fifths (78%) of the SME employers we polled invested in training and professional