'Businesses should encourage employees to learn skills'

'Businesses should encourage employees to learn skills'

16.9.2008

Businesses need to encourage their employees to learn and develop new skills in the workplace, the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) has said.

A report was recently published by Deloitte's Entrepreneurship looking at the skills used by the UK's workforce and revealed that three-quarters use computerised equipment.

"The first thing we do when we come into work is switch on our PCs - we can't work without them," said Martyn Sloman, learning and development advisor at the CIPD.

Instead, employers should be encouraging workers to develop leadership and feedback skills, he added. They also need to be able to write long and short documents and give instructions and create presentations.

Mr Sloman said these skills have "rocketed in importance" and the old-fashioned skills are "disappearing".

Deloitte's Entrepreneurship report also found that 31 per cent of firms said that a shortage of quality workers meant they were not able to grow as a business.

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