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How your 60% silent majority can fill your Skills Gap


How your 60% silent majority can fill your Skills Gap

A discussion of Value Pathing from the employees’ standpoint




I agree the first group of people have goals, love to accomplish things and are willing to work hard to get there. If you are reading this article there is about a 99% chance that you are in that group. My guess is ~30% of the workforce.

There is a second group who truly have no problem with living at a low standard of living if they are given money and do not have to work. I believe this is a rather small minority of ~10 - 15%.

The subject of this article is a third group which I believe makes up 60% of the workforce. They have goals, they want to accomplish things, and they are willing to work hard to get it. So what makes them different then the first group? Simply they don’t know how to make it happen and their personalities are such they get frustrated. Their personalities prompt them to suffer quietly until they leave.

This group recognizes the need to develop someone from a warm pair of hands to a skilled or highly skilled worker. They differ from the first group who will figure it out, make it happen, tenaciously hanging on until it happens. Sometimes the first group, along the way, discovers a new way to look at things. The third group needs someone to show it to them and give them the tools to make it happen.

The Value Path from the employees’ perspective must be:

  1. Detailed explanation of what needs to happen with as much detail as possible
  2. Specific goals and objective criteria to determine each goals completion
  3. Clear relevant reward program for success
  4. In their field of interest
  5. Must motivate them to seize the responsibility of their own development
  6. A history of employees succeeding
  7. Clear alignment between employee and organizational success

Value Pathing benefits both the organization and employees.

  1. Fills your Skills Gap
  2. Engages your employees
  3. Moves the onus of development to the employee
  4. Serves as a powerful recruiting tool      

