The most famous quote taken from Kubrick’s “The Shining” might have a complete new sense for British SMEs. The Confederation of British industries has identified skill shortage as one of the possible threats to competitiveness for British enterprises, a phenomenon that might be exacerbated through the effects of Brexit. A lack in terms of skills might reduce the innovative edge of the enterprises thus limiting their performance. But how can an enterprise involve its employees in continuous personal development, while minimizing the time taken from work?

The trend is the provision of in-house training, which will minimize the impact of trainings in terms of time, but also in terms of resources. In-house trainings have the advantage of providing specific knowledge through hands-on experience and expertise. The downshift in terms of skills has already started to translate in out-sourcing of trainings for SMEs: on average, 57% of enterprises with less than 50 employees, turn to professional companies when it comes to training and development of employees. For the largest businesses, the bulk of training is being delivered through in-house expertise with just a third of training on average delivered by external specialists (37% on average among those with 5,000 or more employees).

A possible answer to the skill shortage might be gamification. Involving employees and managers in learning activities through on-line games developed to improve specific skills, might have positive results on the performance of the employees, but also on the development of the team.

Looks like the employer of Jack Torrance will have an alternative way to keep him focused!

Sources:
“Skills Shortage: How Gamification Takes Pain Out Of Personal Development”
http://minutehack.com/opinions/tackling-the-skills-shortage-how-gamification-takes-pain-out-of-personal-development
“The right combination”, CBI/Pearson education and Skill Survey 2016
http://www.cbi.org.uk/cbi-prod/assets/File/pdf/cbi-education-and-skills-survey2016.pdf?mc_cid=dce980549f&mc_eid=6be1e9feb5