Three in five C-suite executives feel they lack expertise: poll

Years of experience spell little difference between the confidence levels of senior execs and newcomers.

Close to three in five or 57% of senior and director level professionals, deemed as the highest paid and responsible for the company's financial success, feel as though they lacked the necessary skills and knowledge to perform well at work, independent research commissioned by knowledge-sharing platform Tigerhall revealed.

Over half or 56% of respondents also said that as a result of their lack of skills and knowledge, they have made mistakes at work and are not performing at the required level, whilst 43% feel unhappy at work, and a further 25% want to leave their current job.

Similarly, nearly three fourths or 74% of white collar workers feel they lack the expertise they need to do their job well. The number of years in the workplace had little impact on whether respondents felt well-equipped to do their job, with only a 12 pp difference between 21-year-olds and those over 45 years old.

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“Shockingly, 78% of those who felt ill-equipped held university degree level education and 69% a Masters degree, raising serious questions about the content and value University degrees, Masters and adult courses are providing,” the firm noted.

But according to Tigerhall CEO Nellie Wartoft, the research findings met the firm’s expectations and reflects the sentiment it has seen in the market and amongst its users.

“Adults are not receiving the level of professional knowledge and skills they need and deserve. Formal education is struggling to measure up and it’s only getting worse due to the speed of change we’re seeing in the workplace,” she said. “The creation of new job roles such as data scientist and conversion rate optimisation specialist, new ways of working such as location independent teams, and soft skills needed for managing and developing the wave of Gen Z and Millennials in the workplace means traditional education just isn’t providing what people need to keep up.”

The research also found that when it came to what was lacking in terms of the skills they need, survey respondents were split equally between soft skills, such as managing people, negotiation or presenting, and job role-specific skills, such as digital marketing, financial modeling, and agile methodologies.