The importance of skills analysis
Author : Gary Fuller, Programme Manager at Festo Training & Consulting
11 December 2018
Lack of skills is one of the biggest barriers to the successful implementation of Industry 4.0. In a marketplace where ready-made skills are in such short supply, employers know that the chances of finding an exact match for their needs are small. This means that decisions about how to upskill existing teams are more important now than ever.
According to recent research by Festo Training and Consulting, 29 percent of organisations planning Industry 4.0 solutions say they need additional staff to make it a success and 52 percent recognise that existing staff need development and retraining. Finding people with the right skills to develop and work alongside technology is creating a significant recruitment challenge for the manufacturing and engineering sector, as well as an urgent need to train and upskill.
Check your business need
Delivering a good quality course or programme isn’t enough. Successful learning is just as dependent on what happens before any training has even taken place. Decisions about learning and development should always have clear objectives that are aligned with your business goals. As well as being based on identified individual and business needs.
So how do you know where to retrain in order to upskill your workforce? There are three important checks that you need to make:
Is it pitched at the right level?
Training can only be effective if it is pitched at the right level for your people. Too basic and they’ll be disengaged, too advanced and it will fail to make an impact. If you get it wrong you won’t receive a good return on the investment (ROI). Check your team’s knowledge and find out where their skill level currently lies.
Is it developing the right skills?
Some roles may become obsolete with the use of more sophisticated technology. But the skills required to maintain and update that technology, particularly in growing areas such as Artificial Intelligence and robotics, will be in demand. Assess whether the skills you currently have are aligned with your existing technology, and identify the skills that you think you need to take the business forward.
Is it being delivered to the right people?
Whether your team needs to develop skills in pneumatics, mechatronics or hydraulics, to achieve a good ROI, training should be matched to an individual or team’s role. Course content should be relevant and help your employees to perform better in their job. Ideally, courses should be timed so that participants can immediately put their learning into action when they return to work.
Analyse your training need
To ensure the answer to all three of the above questions is yes, a training needs analysis (TNA) is a really useful tool. A TNA will conduct a thorough and specific examination of the challenges you are facing, based on your data and your equipment. This identifies gaps between the knowledge and skills that your team currently have, and what they need to perform well in their specific environment. This gap analysis takes the risk out of your training plans and supports you to make decisions about what type of training you need. Whether it’s an off the peg course or something more bespoke.
A full TNA may not always be possible – or needed. At Festo we also use a series of simple Knowledge Checks for a range of technical topics, so organisations, teams and individuals can be sure that training is right for them before making a booking. For example, before a pneumatics course, we check participant’s knowledge about correct port labelling and basic types of pneumatic cylinder. The valuable insights gained from this will highlight any skills gaps and help develop a plan to fill those gaps. With this comes the confidence that you are using your training budget strategically and effectively.
Share your knowledge
When preparing any upskilling or training programme you need to work with people who want to learn and develop. That’s why it’s vital to get your team excited about future possibilities and what they are going to learn. By communicating and addressing any fears about automation you will reduce the risk of negative views becoming entrenched and your team staying resistant to change.
It’s a good idea to harness the strengths of the different generations in your workforce to help you achieve this. Younger engineers will have up to date training, along with an energy and thirst for knowledge, which can enthuse their more experienced team mates. Older engineers can impart learning from their years of practical experience to help get new starters up to speed in the real world.
Predicting the future
At Festo we come across managers who are scared that if they train their people they will leave. But what happens if you don’t train your people and they stay? It’s easy to find companies who have made this mistake – their technology gathers dust, they lose out to their competitors, and they must bear the financial and social burden of reducing employee headcount.
The current pace of change is unprecedented. New technologies are being developed and skills that we can’t predict will be needed in the very near future. To prepare for the challenges ahead, managers need to become better at making agile predictions about training and upskilling their teams. And organisations must use the tools at their disposal to analyse and consider the skills that they need, today and into an increasingly automated future.
Find out more here http://www.festo-didactic.co.uk/gb-en/training/all-courses/industry-4.0/
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