But it is in times like these that the need for innovation and first rate leadership are a must and the whole workforce needs to be performing at the highest level possible if an organisation is to survive or even prosper.

If there are savings, efficiencies or opportunities to be had, it’s during these times companies need them most. Research shows that companies that that have invested in training their staff were twice more likely to have experienced growth than those that don’t. Research has also shown that companies that have invested in specific skills training over the last 12 months have been more than twice as likely to have experienced business growth.

For businesses to survive in difficult times, all staff must have the necessary skills, and be focused in the right way in order to contribute fully to business objectives. An effective and strategically aligned training, skills or development policy is one of the best tools a business can have to ride the storm of the recession and ensure it is best placed for when the economy picks up again.

This is about ensuring the right skills infrastructure is in place to support business performance and growth, and about using your workforce effectively. It's important that companies analyse business needs and invest wisely in staff development to ensure maximum return on investment.

You can’t necessarily train yourself out of a recession because if the customers simply aren’t there, any spare cash will have to be put back into the business. But when there are still choices to be made and you are looking to increase productivity, training is the key to success. Of course it’s not about training for trainings sake. It’s about finding the right training, addressing skills shortages and gaps so that you can drive productivity and competitiveness.

Investing in specific skills training can help companies by increasing productivity, reducing operating costs and improving staff morale, all of which will help a company to gain a competitive advantage in the global market. But, it is only logical that any investment that is made in training is to work as effectively as possible so that skills are retained and developed in line with business objectives. By finding the right training, companies can address the skills shortages and gaps present.

However, for many employers, it is not feasible to warrant employees the time off for training courses and spending money on training may not be at the top of the priority list, but every second counts and now is the time that companies should be looking at how they can effectively manage the skills of their workforce.

Knowing what skills are available in the current workforce can allow a company to analyse what is missing and provide flexible cost-effective solutions. If you can not accurately conduct a skills audit then you will have a job creating a clear picture of what your capabilities are and if you don’t know what you are capable of how can you create successful strategy for your business? By identifying the actual and optimum skills profile of the company, a business can then decide how and where to invest. You need to understand the gaps before you can fill them.

This is no easy task and the larger the workforce, the more difficult it is to manage the skills of the whole workforce, but there are tools that can make the process easy to manage, saving time and resource and ultimately money.

Use a tool that supports employers in the effective management of their workforce skills and benchmarks individual’s skills and competencies against industry standards. A web based tool allows businesses to define exactly what an individual needs to know and be able to do in order to achieve maximum performance in their job, by aligning development to strategic business objectives. Skills gaps are easily identified, allowing training budgets to be spent where they are needed most ensuring that businesses are operating at the industry standard and thus remaining competitive.

We are slowly pulling ourselves out of the recession and there have been reports that the manufacturing industry is showing growth in activity and this is great news for the sector. The steady increases in production and in orders are hopefully clear signs that manufacturing activity is on the up, but we still have a long way to go.

We need to ensure that our skilled work base remains here in the UK; that our younger generation will be the future of the industry; and we invest in them and our current workforce to ensure we have the skills base we need. Investing in the existing workforce will help employees to reach their potential, provide a multi-skilled workforce and create an exciting workplace to attract quality recruits.

Training allows employees to emerge with the skills, knowledge and attitudes required by employers to lead the way in the 21st century.