Firms Have “Just Weeks” to Ready Workers for Business Boom

Employers have just weeks to ensure workers are set to take advantage of new growth opportunities. Training will be essential to ensure staff have the skills they need to thrive. But how much of it is effective? Questionmark, the online assessment provider, is encouraging employers to measure the development of staff skills so that they can be confident training programs are making a difference.

Thanks to a combination of government stimulus and “pent up” consumer spending, economists predict that $4 trillion will be released into the United States (US) economy as restrictions are lifted.¹ Strong growth is also forecast across the United Kingdom (UK),² the Eurozone,³ and Australia.⁴

A consumer boom will create opportunities for growth across the economy. But employers fear that their staff do not have the skills they need to take advantage of them. The vast majority (87%) of executives face a gap between the skills they need and those prevalent among the workforce, says research from management consultancy McKinsey.⁵

Training can be at the heart of preparing the workforce to face the future. But not all of it is equally effective. Of the $130 billion spent on corporate training each year, research finds just 25% to be effective.⁶

Questionmark is advising employers to ensure they are operating effective learning and development programs by:

• Testing the skills of workers before training – to ensure they understand which workers need to participate and avoid wasted training. This will also provide information on what specific support team members need.

• Assess participants during the training – to ensure that they are learning as they go. Studies show that if people are regularly assessed while learning they are more likely to retain the knowledge after.⁷

• Test participants after training – so that they can be confident that participants have learned the right information and that it has stuck.

Lars Pedersen, CEO of Questionmark, said: “Training can help employers be confident that their teams have the skills they need to thrive. But with huge growth opportunities just around the corner, it is vital they can be sure it’s working.

“By testing participants before, during and after training, employers can ensure workers are equipped with the skills to ride the forthcoming wave. They can reduce wasted training and ensure training programs are relevant to the immediate business need.”

www.questionmark.com

Ends

Notes to editors

About Questionmark

Questionmark unlocks performance through reliable and secure online assessments.

Questionmark provides a secure enterprise-grade assessment platform and professional services to leading organizations around the world, delivered with care and unequalled expertise. Its full-service online assessment tool and professional services help customers to improve their performance and meet their compliance requirements. Questionmark enables organizations to unlock their potential by delivering assessments which are valid, reliable, fair and defensible.

Questionmark offers secure powerful integration with other LMS, LRS and proctoring services making it easy to bring everything together in one place. Questionmark’s cloud-based assessment management platform offers rapid deployment, scalability for high-volume test delivery, 24/7 support, and the peace-of-mind of secure, audited U.S., Australian and European-based data centers.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210323005421/en/