The Accenture study -- which questioned 200 CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CIOs and senior HR executives in six countries -- found that Australian executives considered information technology skills were the least important area to strengthen. These lay behind areas such as management leadership, teamwork and general business acumen. However, it was unclear from the study whether managers rated IT skills as low priority because they believed that area was unimportant or the skill levels of their staff in that area were already good. Across the six countries improving IT skills was rarely ranked as a priority, but only Germany joined Australia in ranking the importance last.
Australian companies also have little faith in the abilities of their staff across a range of skills. No Australian company believed the vast majority of their staff had industry leading skills, whereas the average over the six countries included in the study revealed 27 percent of companies believed their staff had industry leading skills.
At the other end, 21 percent of Australian companies believe that less than a quarter of their staff have industry leading skills, compared to an international average of eight percent, according to the study.
Australian companies are joining their international counterparts in increasing spending on training, with 63 percent of Australian respondents reporting an increase in the training budget (international average of 41 percent) compared to only five percent saying they had decreased the training budget (international average of 16 percent).
"The survey told us that spending on training is increasing slightly, but people are dissatisfied with the results," Grant Powell, partner of human performance for Accenture Australia told ZDNet Australia . "We could spend the money better, in a more focussed way."
The survey found that 37 percent of Australian respondents were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied that their training and development organisation is providing timely, relevant and cost-effective services, compared to an international average of 12 percent.
This belief was called into question when only 21 percent of Australian respondents indicated their company routinely measures the impact of training and development on business performance, lagging behind the international average of 32 percent.
Of the 200 organisations studies, only 27 were determined to have a good training regime. Powell said these companies did three main things:
- Considered HR, training and development to be valuable and strategically important
- Measured the impact of training programs, both the financial and non-financial outcomes
- and leveraged technology in the approach to training the workforce.
Australian respondents comprised 9.5 percent of the study.
