The time for upskilling your workforce is now

By Krysia Wooffinden, assistant director for skills and employment at Sheffield City Region

We know that one of the barriers to business growth is skills. Businesses can have a sought-after product, a unique offer for customers or a service that only they can provide. But, if there is a gap in the skills of their team, this may affect their ability to take a product to market, strategically plan or undertake developmental activity.

As a region we are facing a low productivity challenge.

Upskilling staff and re-training is just one way to improve productivity and allow businesses to operate more effectively.

Krysia Wooffinden

Skills Bank is an example of an innovative, locally designed solution and shows the benefits of devolving resources to local areas to meet economic needs.

The Skills Bank programme was purposely designed to directly respond to businesses, allowing for the delivery of flexible and responsive training that meets identified training needs there and then.

Its focus is on helping employers to grow their business by developing the skills they need and puts employers from across the Sheffield City Region in charge of their own skills and training plans.

Skills Bank’s expert team is dedicated to providing the right support, advice and direction to businesses with specialist Skills Advisors who will help businesses to cut through the jargon and red tape associated with training.

They help businesses understand the impact training their staff can have on their growth ambitions, productivity and staff retention. Businesses that work with our Skills Advisors receive a personalised service which helps them to identify the right training and support them to decide for themselves who they want to deliver that training.

And where existing training does not exist, Skills Bank can develop tailor-made programmes specifically designed to address the needs of that business.

Further information on the programme, for both employers and training providers, can be found at https://skillsbankscr.co.uk/ which outlines some of the training on offer as well as details on the range of training providers already involved in the scheme.

The online application can also be found here and the process couldn’t be easier.

Closing the skills gap shouldn’t be daunting. Skills Bank is here to help.