The last few weeks I received suddening news from friends who either had been terminated,have an impending termination or are facing challenges at their work places that could lead to termination.The reason for termination, impending termination or challenges that could lead to termination were given as skills gap or lack of professionalism.In some instances black listing of the terminated workers was one of the proposed recommendations by some hiring companies.Quoting the organization that was moving for blacklisting of terminated workers,”We do not want the workers that we have terminated to work with any other organization because they can spoil the other workers”,the human resources manager said.These friends worked in different sectors including the formal work sectors.
In the social media platforms which I subscribe to there were two fundamental questions:
1.Should employees be terminated because of skills gap?
2.Is the termination and blacklisting of “unprofessional workers” a way of organizing work force inorder to attain professionalism?
We dig deep into our experience as well as expertise on brand and enterprise building to lay the facts straight and pave way for better brands in the work space . Today we focus on termination of workers because of skills gap as a way of organizing the labour force.The excerpts herein will also reflect my response to the terminated workers as well as the platform on social media.
By creation all people were wonderfully created both male and female with ability to do work and blessed with varying talents.
Different learning theories that have been raised by many different great scholars still attest to the same fact and further continues to breakdown on when people start to learn, when they stop learning, where they learn from,their learning styles, conditions that facilitate or affect their learning and many other critical issues in education.
With that in mind and in light of the scenario in number 1 above,as all the stakeholders attempt to address the issue of skills gap,the key fundamental question is ;In which capacity are you addressing the issue of skills gap?
We breakdown these questions in line with the core organizational areas as far as humanity is concerned;
a) Are you addressing the issue of skills gap as an employee?
b) Are you addressing the issue of skills gap as a workers union?
c) Are you addressing the issue of skills gap as a well wisher?
d) Are you addressing the issue of skills gap as a regulator?
e) Are you addressing the issue of skills gap as an arbitrator?
f) Are you addressing the issue of skills gap as government?
g) Are you addressing the issue of skills gap in the capacity of an organization? h) Are you addressing the issue of skills gap in any other capacity?,in which case your capacity must be predefined.
Employees are the owners of their labour.Employees have a responsibility of preparing themselves for employment by attaining the required skills necessary for execution of work in their profession of choice.From their young age to their employable age employees attend whatever form of training as well as mentoring in order to become qualified professionals.Employees continue to acquire more skills during their work tenure ,such skills enable them to perform tasks that they were not able to perform and attain promotion to higher positions at work.With time such employees become experts in their trade and professions.
A professional workers union has a role of bringing together workers who have attained similar skills and are able to perform similar tasks in the same profession.The workers union addresses the issue of skills gap by advocating for proper training of young people who are still attending school,sensitising workers on matters of skills acquisition,agitating for training of workers to attain more skills and position themselves for promotion.
Regulators in all sectors and training may often come in the form of professional bodies, examination bodies, certifying bodies.Regulators provide that enabling environment for qualified workers to provide services in the job market and also enable employers to hire qualified workers.The regulator does not acquire skills for employees at any course of their work.
Arbitrators contribute to skills acquisition by simply having a legal framework and specific laws upon which arbitration of all cases regarding awards,certifications and any other issues emanating from the right to acquisition of skills.
Governments have a mandate to provide social services which includes education and any form of training that is adopted within the territories.The education cycle begins from designing the right curriculum which can guarantee the imparting of the right skills onto the very last graduation attained by any learner as well as ensuring all trained citizens are absorbed into employment within the fields that they were trained in .Even with such roles of governments they still don’t acquire skills for employees.
Organizations play a major role of employing qualified people to work in their organization.Organizations do employ by carrying out recruitment on their own terms and procedures.The recruitment process basically involves calling for the right talent through job advertisement, selection of talent,interviewing of selected talent and finally employing talent who satisfied the interview panel.All organizations have their way of orientating,inculcating and training employees as a way of addressing any skills gap as well as preparing employment talent for tasks that may be unique for their role in the company that they have not experienced anywhere else.Some workers are even sponsored to enroll in specific institutions to attain unique skills that would be applied in an organization department.These major roles are particularly very important for companies to have the right skills among their employees since there is no known training in education institutions that can provide all what is needed by organizations in the field.Even the most practical tertiary institution as well as University training will not present the totally complete skilled talent for the organization work.Most of the top notch market skills can only be attained within company experience even by the so called best student.There is no known amount of industrial training, placements and apprenticeship that can equal the hands on manipulative skills that is attained by a worker within the work environment.No matter how many times a student is taken back to be re-skilled they will truly never attain the skills acquired by workers in the field.This is also very true because learning is ongoing even when they have acquired all the skills relevant to their company work.Atually when we take a close examination at all the various industry experts of both yesterday and today they were all given a chance to start with the skills that they had attained and added on other relevant skills from within the company ranks.
Any other stakeholders can address the issue of skills gap.They can best address the issue of skills gap by contributing within a clearly predefined capacity.Such organizations can align their services in line with the needs of the employee ,needs of governments or needs of any other stakeholders contributing towards addressing the issue of skills gap.
As I conclude,in light of the fate of the workers discussed herein there is non of the other stakeholders that acquires knowledge as well as skills for the employee.Such stakeholders can best contribute to addressing the issue of skills gap as well as professionalism of workers by organizing within their respective capacities as discussed brielfy herein.
Generally any other stakeholder who claims to be for the workers must ultimately identify with and align all their services with the interest of the worker or else identify with other stakeholders.
In my own opinion every worker should reserve the right to aquisition of skills as well as knowledge and protect their own interests.Employees should always belong to a group of workers who offer similar services.I recommend that all workers should belong to a professional workers union, in such forum their own interests are best handled as a group.
Are you contributing towards building a professional labour force within your own capacity?
Do you need help building brands and enterprises?
Do you need help in addressing the issue of skills gap in your organization?
Do you need help in organizing proper tools used in building brands and enterprises like business/organization plans, group/organization/company constitutions,board formation and functionality, winning proposals, organization policies formulation,expressions of interest and others?
For such tools and more on building brands,organizations and addressing issues of skills gap in organizations check out for more insights in our subsequent articles.
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