I shared an interesting discussion with several business organisations and accountancy bodies at BIS this week, focused on the 'skills agenda' for SMEs. Of course it set me thinking: How does a small business identify what skills it needs to help it get established and grow? How does it know which are essential as opposed to merely 'nice to have' and which will make a real tangible difference? When issues are identified, how does it differentiate between those that are caused by a skills gap and those caused by external factors over which it has no control?
And it made me think of other questions: How does it deliver the necessary skills it identifies to the owners and/or staff? Can the skills be taught or would they be better learned on the job through a hands-on approach? How can it ensure the skills learned feed through to the benefit of the business? And how does it calculate payback, establish whether the investment was worthwhile, and validate that it's really making a difference?
Small businesses don't have Training or HR departments, they certainly don't have big training budgets, and often won't have a mechanism to encourage staff development. The consequence may be that the employees fail to grow and the business misses the benefits that would result from the investment. I've started a related discussion on the ICM Credit Community LinkedIn Group http://linkd.in/jCFJGi and would be interested in views from credit professionals.
I'm writing these words in the grounds of Leeds Castle after another successful ICM Regional Breakfast Roadshow - there were over 500 years of credit management experience in the room and that's where the real value of the ICM credit community shows its worth.
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