As the economic downturn forces many companies to let go of highly experienced and skilled members of staff, those left on the payroll are under increasing pressure to fill the void left by their former colleagues. With many businesses also reducing or completely cutting their training budgets – those employees taking on expanded job roles often do so with inadequate training.

This leaves a skills gap in many UK companies that could not only be detrimental to business prospects long term, but also leave staff ill-equipped and stressed in the short term. So how can business and HR mangers minimise the effects of this skills deficit? At what point should you invest in more training? And how can you marshal your precious budgets to your advantage?

In our interactive Web TV Show, business consultant Tony Manwaring will be advising on how to keep your business ahead of the game in today’s climate and beyond. As CEO of agenda-setting employment think tank Tomorrow’s Company – he’ll be discussing recruitment and training strategies to ensure all key roles are covered by the right skills to keep your team in optimum balance.

Joining Tony is Ben Taylor from Vodafone, who has authored a major new Vodafone Working Nation report exploring the trends that are currently shaping the United Kingdom at work. If you have any questions for Tony or Ben please e-mail them now via the box above and we’ll do our best to answer them during the WebTV show.

H: Jayne Constantinis, host
T: Tony Manwaring, CEO Tomorrow’s Company
B: Ben Taylor, Vodafone

H: Hello and welcome to the Business Show, I’m Jayne Constantinis. As the economic downturn forces many companies to streamline their workforce, those left on the payroll are under increasing pressure to fill the void left by their former colleagues. At the same time, according to a major research document released today many businesses are also reducing or completely cutting their training budgets – resulting in those employees who are left behind taking on expanded job roles often without adequate training. The Vodafone Working Nation Report reveals how employers and employees are reacting to the downturn, and in particular how they’re handling this skills gap. Well to discuss the findings I’m joined by Tony Manwaring whose the CEO of employment and business think tank Tomorrow’s Company. And Ben Taylor from Vodafone, authors of the Working Nation report. Gentlemen, welcome, thank you for coming in to talk to me. Ben if I could begin by asking you about the report and why you thought it was important to get behind it?

B: Well we’ve been doing these reports for just over five years now, this is 8^th in the series. We’ve looked at loyalty at work, we’ve looked at personality in the workplace, we’ve looked at the community at work. This report looks at the skills of work, and particularly in light of the recession that we’re currently in. If you look at some of the statistics that have come out, nearly half of business owners have said that they potentially had to cut their workforce and potentially had to cut too much, and that even – it rises to 90% if you look at what would happen if they had to cut further. So the report really looks at what those cuts mean for skills within an organisation, whether it means that you have the sufficient skills not only to survive the economic downturn but to come out successful

H: I think – it’s about 37% isn’t it that have needed to let people go. That’s quite – altogether that’s quite a depressing picture isn’t it Tony?

T: Yes I mean it’s tough and I don’t think one should in any way deny that, people have got to hold on, they’ve got to keep their businesses going, they’ve got to keep in employment, but I think the – what’s also coming through this is that we’re starting to see the adaptation that we’re going to need in order to be successful in the future and I’m not sure I’d want to kind of say there’s opportunity there but there is perhaps a basis for hope, and what you’re seeing I think particularly in the evidence that firms are having to ask more, that people are needing to be more flexible, actually are finding that women are a key resource in making that transition, is evidence of the kind of economy that we think we’re going to see in the future, an economy that comes to terms with the fact we’re in a global marketplace, there’s fierce competition out there, people are not just learning new skills all the time but also they’re having to harness their full talent and they’re having to harness their full talent often to new purpose, new business models, new businesses are being created, and what’s really important for the UK now isn’t just that we’ve got to button down the hutches for the recession, but we’re also thinking about what’s going to follow

H: You talk about you know global issues, of course we’re not operating in a vacuum, how do we compare with others, let’s say Europe and the US in terms of our commitment to training generally, let alone during a recession?

T: The picture is really clear – historically the UK has lagged hugely behind. There’s significant evidence of trying to catch up on that but as we’re trying to catch up others are advancing even further, but as well as asking the skills question I think what we’re increasingly seeing is you’ve also got to ask the talent question, and the thing about skills is people tend to see it as a deficit model – what skills don’t you have and how are we going to fix you? Whereas the really interesting question I think starts to become what are you good at, what are you passionate about, what do you care about, what do I as an employer need to understand about you and how do we relate to each other, how do we build trust and integrity together and how out of a shared relationship do we build the new products, the new offers that people are going to want in the future?

H: That’s a really interesting, you’ve talked about skills and talent as being different things – from the report then, is this something that employees are already – do they understand that or have they got some catching up to do?

B: I certainly think that employees understand that they have potentially more to offer than the employer currently employs them to do, and I particularly – the report is saying for employers to look at their current workforce and to see how best they can exploit the talent they’ve already got within the organisation. There’s an awful lot of latent talent within all organisations that really isn’t being exploited, and that’s you know one of the key learnings from this is look to your workforce and find out what they can do for you, not what you think they already do

H: Yes but you see that word “exploit” – that’s a difficult word isn’t it because it’s all very well saying you know talking about identifying talents that maybe they didn’t know were there, but when does that turn into exploitation because they’re being asked to do simply too much or something that they’re not qualified to do?

B: Well the report certainly looks at stress levels and demonstrates that stress levels have risen, I think the word exploit in this case is very much meant as how can you grow an individual in an organisation – it’s not about exploitation, but evidently you have to balance that with overload of work. Everyone wants to develop, everyone wants to equip themselves for either the next job or within the organisation, and sometimes that is looking at some of the softer skills that they may have within the workforce or some of the softer skills that would help them do not only their job better but other elements of the role that that business has

H: You mentioned, and I’m not going to dwell on it too much, some of the things that women are naturally or instinctively better at. Is that more about juggling different roles, is it more about teamwork?

T: I think there are two answers – two parts of the answer to that question. One is – what do we typically see women as being good at, and the second is, is that inherently, genetically, innately stuff that’s uniquely – that women can do. So yes it’s about multi-tasking, yes it’s about keeping the show on the road, yes it’s about juggling lots of roles and responsibilities, I think it also has to be said that you have to wonder because men hold to a kind of fixture of the job that they do, and the salary they should get for that job, that it’s proven easier to displace men, and then to ask women to be more flexible in what they take up, so there's a negative side to this story perhaps as well as a positive side to this story. But I think the other part of this is that those kind of skills, those kind of capabilities are increasingly what business are looking for. And there is a new business model that’s needed for the future, the old business model increasingly won’t do, and it’s one which is about emotional intelligence, it’s one which is about to go to the exploitation question, co-creating, it’s about creating value together within the workforce and between the workforce, and the customer base. So the old model of exploitation and all of the kind of framing that goes around that I think is increasingly dated and –

H: So we’re –

T: Sorry

H: No go on

T: We’re working – and our language reflects quite a European kind of Anglo Saxon way of thinking about those questions. Just the other very quick thing I wanted to say is I think the challenge for men is – I’m not sure that I’m not aware of the evidence that says that men can’t do those things, I think since we’ve had society and a culture where we’ve valued women, or perhaps not valued women sufficiently, for doing those things and now we need to ensure that men rise to that challenge as well. Sorry

H: What we’re not good at is getting a word in edgeways – but I’ll try now!

T: Sorry

H: It sounds to me as if you’re saying that the changes that are occurring during this recession would have had to happen anyway. Are you saying that’s the way business needs to move anyway, regardless of what the economic position is?

T: Yes

B: I think – a lot of the other reports that we have done demonstrate that businesses are needing to change, and that businesses need to adopt different stances and different viewpoints on the world to maybe how they did 20 / 30 years ago. But it’s a constant evolution. There’s no necessarily a step change in today we do it this way and tomorrow we do it another, but it is always constantly evaluating your businesses, it’s how the successful businesses emerge

H: Ok. I don’t want to dwell on this word exploitation but we have got a question in that I think is quite interesting. We talked about men and women. Let’s think now about sort of age because Jonathan says “with so much competition for grab jobs at the moment” – so I think he’s talking about getting into a job in the first place – “are the youngsters being taken advantage of?” So perhaps even young people who are just in employment – do you think they’re being put upon?

B: We didn’t see that in the report. Evidently as you work your way through your working career you gain experience and therefore potentially have other things to offer to businesses, but we didn’t see any great highlights of youth being exploited over experience

H: Another word that’s coming through in the questions and comments is stress. I mean it’s quite a difficult place to be isn’t it? In a business where others have been made redundant around you – there’s a great deal of vulnerability isn’t there? How can the employers help to minimise that?

B: I think we go back to an earlier point – it is about looking at your workforce. It is about seeing what skills they have, what talent they have what experience they have and ensuring that you play to people’s strengths. Making changes within a business is never a comfortable thing to do for anybody, and it’s never done for any other intent other than to make sure that business survives. But it’s also an opportunity to ensure that the people that you have retained are doing a fulfilling job in a way that they wish to do it

H: And just to say that that question about stress came in from the trainingzone.co.uk. Were there any interesting regional differences that came out of the report?

B: Surprisingly not. It is virtually uniform across the country, the concerns, the need for – I’m not going to say re-training actually because training is an issue that is not necessarily totally related to this but re-skilling. It’s uniform across the country by the looks of things

H: What’s the difference between re-training and re-skilling?

B: Well I think training is something you’re given and you take, and skilling can be something you give to yourself

H: Ok. This business Tony of developing talents that you already had. Who do you think the onus is on? Is the onus on the employee to say actually hang on, I think I could do that because I’ve just realised I have the capabilities, or do you think it’s on the employer to look at what they have and see what could be made of it if you like?

T: I think it has to be both. I think that for the employee they need to be confident in themselves and they need to assert what they can do and not just kind of be at the receiving end. I think that though for employers, and just to share some of the experience of working with say big Indian companies, I think some of the best practice you have a real commitment to developing people over different programs, different projects, different experiences in a very conscious and thought-through way over a long period of time, so that the capabilities that people have get revealed to themselves and then they feel more confident and more able to assert themselves. So it’s a dynamic that has to be created. It’s quite a complex process

H: Is there something going on here about the fluidity of the workplace? People tend to move on more often don’t they into new jobs than they did 30 / 40 years ago. The concept of a job for life simply doesn’t exist any more. Do you think that’s had an impact on the employers’ attitude to training, the idea that yes I’m going to train this person up then they’re going to leave?

T: Equally with the very best employers you find people still saying extraordinarily long periods of time. And I think it is about a conversation, it’s about authenticity, it’s about integrity, goes back to the recession and redundancy point earlier. Problem with recession and redundancy is people get scared, they close down, they don’t have an honest conversation with people. There is vulnerability but you need to maintain a straight conversation with people, so there is trust, and then when there’s trust you can discover what capabilities people have, what they might want to do, what turns them on, then you can inspire and engage them. So it’s much more in that how do you inspire, how do you pull that stuff from people, rather than kind of continue and push it through on the kind of skills agenda

H: I’d just like to take a question from Dan Martin whose the editor of businesszone.co.uk – he’s been Tweeting about the show. He says how can small business owners who don’t have the budget for a large workforce ensure all the relevant skills required to operate their company successfully are covered? Small businesses –

B: the first thing that I would recommend is that they go to workingnation.co.uk and have a look at the report we produced on it, particularly on skills, and there are a number of other documents on there to have a look through . I think it is very much around, again looking at your employees it doesn’t matter if you’re a large organisation or a small one, there is talent within every organisation which you need to make sure you’re aware of and use to the best of your ability

H: But where there is no money, that’s the heart of his question – everything is more on the edge in a small business isn’t it? What can they do in practical terms?

T: I think it’s also about shifting mindset. We were talking about that earlier, and this is not – I can hear the danger of this sounding like a cliché – but it’s moving from a skills-based conversation to a talent-based conversation, and a talent-based conversation recognises those things that inspire you, that you have within, that you want to do, that you can do, so often we see people in pigeon-holes, we think they’re good for that but not for this, and we then foreclose not just what they could do, but also what more they could do if they were really inspired to do it, so I hope that offers some help

H: There’s a great comfort isn’t there in having people in pigeon holes and sometimes being in a pigeon hole

T: Absolutely

H: I know what my roles are and my responsibilities and I don’t want to move, so suddenly everything’s sort of up for grabs. What do you think the long term impact – which will be the companies who don’t just survive but thrive going forwards beyond the recession?

B: I think those ones that embrace the need to look at their employees, the ones that really understand what those employees are capable, and have the necessary systems processes, or intention in place to ensure that they can deliver to the best of their abilities and for them to grow as individuals

T: And I think increasing absolutely all of that, and even the small businesses in the UK are increasingly part of global supply chains, they’re part of a big global marketplace, and businesses at all levels need to recognise they’re part of that marketplace, they need to see that as a huge arena within which they can find new opportunities to develop their products, to bring out what they’re good at, but also it’s not just new business models it’s new business models for a different purpose. Over the next 10 / 20 years we’re going to see the energy systems the world re-written, we’re going to see the housing and infrastructure how we work, how we live, how we travel completely new products and processes – there’s going to be a huge demand for innovation to produce a green, clean economy and society. So businesses which begin to focus on that, and see the opportunities there, are going to have that global marketplaces – those that rely on old business models producing if you like brown businesses for brown products, no pun on our Prime Minister there, are going to find themselves not fit for purpose for the future

H: Fantastic. Very, very interesting. What I’ve taken away is this interesting thing between skills and talent, that’s I think very thought-provoking

T: And in addition to the Working Nation Report, tomorrow’s global talent report really develops that, so encourage people to have a look at that

H: Ok lovely. Thank you very much to both of you. Thank you for watching. Let me remind you about those websites – we’ve got workingnation.co.uk and forceforgood.com. Have a look at those, I’m sure there’s some interesting stuff there. Thanks very much. See you again soon – bye bye