Do you sometimes have a hard time finding the skilled candidates you need? If you do, you’re not alone.
According to Bayt.com ‘Skills Gap in the Middle East’ whitepaper, employers report difficulty in finding the right candidates with the skill sets required to match the demands.
In order for businesses to keep growing and developing across the UAE and in the region, it is urgent to take action and seek long-term solutions to minimize the impact of the skills gap. Fortunately, there are some actionable steps you could do to prevent a future talent shortage for your company today.
Here are our recommendations to help your company tackle the gap in the UAE:
Some businesses have already reaped the benefits of building their own talent pool in-house through apprenticeship/internship programs. This is a real a win-win solution because, in getting their hands dirty, candidates gain hands-on experience and first-time exposure, while offering the employers and hiring managers a real-time overview of their employable skills and qualifications. In an effort to support employers all the way through the skill-matching process, Bayt.com offers Tests, a powerful assessment tool to qualify candidates and see whether their skills are relevant to the employer’s needs.
Too often, young ambitious talents who are not offered the opportunity to grow and move into leadership positions tend to turn their back on their current jobs and seek career opportunities elsewhere. The new generation of workers needs to be mentored to best penetrate the job market, develop leadership and learn how to lead its own destiny. Mentoring is a tremendous resource to tap into and is growing popular as a way to tackle the looming shortage of talents. It could also be a great way to motivate your current employees.
When it comes to retaining qualified talents in a highly-competitive environment, compensation is never enough. The problem is that, as highlighted by various researches, companies are not investing enough in training and talent development, or getting creative offering options like work/life balance – which prove particularly appreciated by entry-level job-seekers. Companies are asked now more than ever to invest in better talent development so they can build resilient experts and keep them onboard. But before that, they need a qualified training personnel able to empower them with those soft-skills (such as negotiation, critical thinking and financial acumen) that have too long taken back seat. Indeed, Bayt.com Middle East Skills Gap survey, May 2016, shows that ‘technical skills’ are often seen as posing the least challenge, while ‘soft skills’ are regarded as most lacking. According to 42% of respondents, the best solution to tackle the skills gap crisis is by having companies provide enough on-the-job training opportunities to their employees.
The benefit? With correct training, you can future-proof your senior hiring using your current junior staff.
We don’t know what the future has in store for us as hiring managers and HR professionals. But what we do know is that the workplace is continually evolving, and your pool of candidates needs to grow too to survive the changes and a marketplace that keeps getting even more competitive. The easiest way to nurture your talent pool and grow it is to invest in an applicant tracking system which are reliable and effective. Talentera, an easy-to-use Bayt.com product, has affirmed itself as a comprehensive online solution that take sourcing, managing and hiring talent to the next level. Its applicant tracking system enables you to keep on top of the recruitment pipeline, work with your recruitment flow and make every single CV meaningful by including your valuable feedback. Moreover, a set of folders is thought to provide support while you are dealing with multiple shortlisting projects, hence accelerating the overall decision-making process.
It’s no secret that the world’s future depends on the choices made by the younger generations today. So how to empower the next generation of employees? Some studies show that, in order to ensure and sustain the flow of the next generation of workers into a given industry, is important to stimulate interest in the subject among youth at young age. It’s here that key stakeholders from industry, academia and governments need to come into play to implement joint strategies and inspire the next generations, drive their perceptions, engage them with sciences from a young age and sustain their interest all the way through university, postgraduate research and professional life. For example, students’ understanding of a specific sector can be deepened by taking them on site visits, and holding presentations and conferences to provide them with insights of the industry. This aspect shouldn’t be uncared of as many young people don’t know how to navigate the labor market and lack information and knowledge of what the world of work is actually like. By partnering with schools, employers can provide youth with a much-needed career guidance at a time when they are making the most important decisions about their professional future.
Did you like this blog post? Which strategy are you implementing to mitigate the talent shortage in the UAE? Get in touch with us, we would love to hear your story!
