CIPD has just launched a “Focus on Workplace Skills and Productivity”, and as you can imagine, HRC Online couldn’t be more excited.

In their recent push for a more high-skilled and effectively trained human resources sector, CIPD stated, “At a national level, too many UK businesses are built around low-skilled, low-value jobs. Employers often design and structure work in a way that limits their staff’s use of skills, resulting in skills-to-job mismatches and stagnant productivity.”

This issue is at the heart of everything that HRC does.

CIPD Highlights The Double Skills Gap Problem

The double skills gap problem is a serious one and highlights the issue of having businesses with low skills, and HR departments with the lack of training to improve the situation. 

Improving employee productivity through quality training and skills has to be done with the consultation of a well developed HR department, and without it businesses don’t grow as well as they could. The unique skills and perspective of HR, especially those with CIPD qualifications, reduces the tension and stress found in companies when employees lack the skills and training, and allows businesses to thrive with all the right people, doing the right jobs for the best reasons.

Lizzie Crowley, Senior Policy Advisor at the CIPD, states: “Skills are a key driver of business success. Investing in skills improves economic performance and productivity. Skills development also benefits individuals: it improves life chances, increases employment and earnings potential, and plays a critical role in supporting social mobility.”

Focusing on skills, and delivering productivity works for every member of an organisation and if the HR advisors and managers have the same issues with their own skills, this can lead to a compounding issue, as those who are tasked with delivering improved productivity through skills are themselves lacking the skills to do their jobs.

Solving the problem through training that works for the employee

As a CIPD Accredited training provider, HRC knows that the only way to grow the industry is by training the next generation of dynamic and thoughtful HR leaders regardless of their ability to attend in-person courses, or wait years to get their Level 3 or Level 5 qualifications.

These highly skilled HR professionals can then set to work to fix the wider skills and productivity issues in UK businesses. HRC agrees with CIPD that successive governments have focused more on formal, higher education like Universities over more practical and work orientated training and learning. This is what HRC was set up to help solve. Not everyone has time to study in-person, or at a specific location or time. But the problem of low productivity must be addressed, and so flexible learning has to be the way forward.

Further reading

Costa R., Liu Z., McNally S., Murphy L., Pissarides C., et al. (2023).
Learning to grow: How to situate a skills strategy in an economic strategy.
Resolution Foundation and Centre for Economic Performance

Brandily P., Distefano M., Shah K., Thwaites G., Valero A. (2023).
Beyond Boosterism: Realigning the policy ecosystem to unleash private investment for sustainable growth.
Resolution Foundation and Centre for Economic Performance

Van Reenen J., Yang X. (2023).
Cracking the Productivity Code: An international comparison of UK productivity.
Centre for Economic Performance

De Lyon J., Martin R., Oliveira-Cunha J., Shah A., Shah K., et al. (2022).
Enduring strengths: Analyzing the UK’s current and potential economic strengths.
The Economy 2030 Inquiry

Alvis S., Sissons A. (2022).
Climate for growth: Productivity, net zero, and the cost of living.
Green Alliance and Nesta

Geels F. W., Pinkse J., Zenghelis D. (2021).
Productivity opportunities and risks in a transformative, low-carbon and digital age.
The Productivity Institute Working Paper

Resolution Foundation, Centre for Economic Performance [RF and CEP] (2023a).
Ending stagnation: A New Economic Strategy for Britain.
Final Report of The Economy 2030 Inquiry

Serin E., Andres P., Martin R., Shah A., Valero A. (2023).
Seizing sustainable growth opportunities from tidal stream energy in the UK.
Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy

Valero A., Van Reenen J. (2023).
Embedding green industrial policy in a growth strategy for the UK.
IPPR Progressive Review

Bloom N., Van Reenen J., Williams H. (2019).
A Toolkit of Policies to promote Innovation.
Journal of Economic Perspectives