The Skills Gap Is Widening. Here's What HR Leaders Must Do Now
HR Colleagues,
Your organization knows exactly what it needs. The problem is in getting there.
Most organizations are scouring the job market for the right skills.
And they're coming up short.
Because they're stuck in the hiring cycle, spending money and time interviewing candidates, when they could be investing in developing the capability their current team already has.
The organizations pulling ahead made a different choice. They've committed to building their own talent instead of endlessly chasing it in the market. And here’s why this matters.
How AI Shifted the Skills Conversation
The conversation about AI disrupting the workforce has shifted fundamentally. Two years ago, job loss dominated discussions. Organizations braced for elimination.
This narrative has collapsed.
SHRM's State of AI HR 2026 research shows that 57% of organizations are identifying upskilling and reskilling opportunities within their current workforce as AI implementation accelerates.
Only 7% report job displacement. Instead, 24% have created entirely new roles, and 87% report improved efficiency.
AI disruption means your people must continuously develop new capabilities to keep pace. That urgency is creating pressure where complacency used to live.
What Organizations Are Actually Chasing (And Missing)
Yet many organizations are chasing the wrong skills.
They assume AI creates the need for more technical expertise.
The data reveals something different.
According to SHRM's 2025 Talent Trends research, foundational skills are in high demand at 58%.
Systems and resource management capabilities rank at 36%. Social skills also register at 36%.
Technical skills rank at 28%.
What organizations really need are managers and leaders capable of thinking critically, navigating complexity, and guiding others through change.
Why Training Alone Won't Close This Gap
So how do you actually build this capability? Most organizations start with training programs.
But training and development aren't the same thing.
Development operates differently. It requires structured practice. Real-time feedback. A safe environment to apply new capabilities without penalty.
Most critically, it requires confirmation that someone can actually perform differently, not simply understand a concept.
This distinction shows up most clearly when leaders try to develop managers who give constructive feedback, manage difficult situations, or make decisions under pressure.
These require skills. Capabilities that develop when people practice, receive feedback, adjust their approach, and practice again.
Most training programs skip the practice and correction. That's why they fail to build lasting capability.
Recommended by LinkedIn
What Leaders Must Shift
Treating skill development as a business priority requires a structured, intentional approach. It's that simple.
Organizations making progress connect skills development directly to their business strategy.
This is disciplined execution on something most organizations claim to care about but never fully resource.
Here's how organizations actually do it:
Identify what matters most by connecting skills development directly to your business strategy over the next three to five years. Where are the capability gaps that threaten performance?
Evaluate your starting point by looking at real performance data and talking directly to leaders and teams. Distinguish between what's urgent versus what matters long-term.
Prioritize what you'll resource. Fund the critical gaps immediately. Schedule the important ones. Don't try to do everything at once.
Build accountability into ownership. Define who develops each capability, what success looks like, and how you'll measure actual performance change.
Build vs. Search: The Real Differentiator
Every organization in your competitive space is reporting difficulty finding candidates with the right skills.
That's not a differentiator.
But here's what most leaders miss: 47% of the roles requiring new skills are positions your people already occupy.
What separates organizations is whether leaders develop the people they have instead of searching for new ones. The result: teams that know how to use tools effectively, adapt when things change, and guide others through that transition.
Your workforce already has the capacity to develop the skills your organization needs. Your team is ready.
The only variable left is whether you are.
Leaders built this skills gap through years of choices about what to prioritize and what to defer.
And leaders can dismantle it by deciding to invest differently.
That decision determines whether you lead the next decade or follow it.
Yours in service,
Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP
President & CEO, SHRM
Resources:
Spot on. Organizations often spend so much time and capital looking outward for the 'perfect' candidate when the raw potential is already sitting right in their meetings. Investing in upskilling and career pathways for existing employees is the ultimate retention and growth strategy.
Build talent, don't just buy it. Internal mobility and upskilling are the real future of talent acquisition!
This conversation will keep recurring until organizations and HR teams view their workforce fundamentally differently. The skills gap closes by identifying the deeper qualities underneath the skills, then connecting them to what the employee actually wants out of their work in a way that is not performative. Until that shift happens, it will persist.
🕉️🙏🕉️That deconditioning in as much non destructive way, as effectively as that in Yogic methods or life, or, going beyond common sense, belief and culture, but not discarding them without verification and reconciliation, is need of the hour for humanity and World, or, creation as we know or, aware of! Fortunately, science, technology, economy, in some way, since dark medieval times, have contributed but, now needs accelerated progress in conducive and sustainable way to bridge up all fragmentation of human mind to step into creation from psychological framework in which they have been floating!🕉️🙏🕉️