How to Upskill and Reskill Your Employees

 

In a previous blog post, we have seen the meaning and importance of upskilling and reskilling. In today’s post let see how an organization can upskill and reskill their employees.

Before creating an upskilling strategy, conduct a discovery phase to see what skills you will need from your employee base down the road. The goal must be to stay ahead of your industry’s future demands to get an edge on your competitors.

Identify Gaps in Skills

Look at current and future business requirements and determine what a future workforce may need for your particular industry. Assess the capabilities of your current workforce and identify gaps in skills or mismatched roles.

Build a plan to deal with the skills gaps by reviewing current upskilling strategies and improving the effectiveness of your learning systems.

Create a cultural shift around upskilling and reskilling that makes learning, career development, and hiring from within a priority.

Develop an Upskilling and Reskilling Plan

Create individualized learning plans and make sure your training is effective and engaging. Make training and development opportunities readily available and affordable for everyone. Accommodate different learning styles. Some employees might do best in a traditional classroom setting with a teacher. And a completely different segment might prefer walking through courses online. Others might prefer microlearning—watching 15-minute videos that cover topics in small increments. Providing something for all learning styles ensures the maximum amount of employees will want to participate.

Empower employees to choose their path. Put them in charge of their personal development plan, and help them make their own decisions around their career progression. When employees feel they have the freedom to choose what areas they develop, they take more ownership over their personal and professional development.

Ensure that employees have dedicated learning and training time and set up a reward and incentive program for completion. Ensure that employees have dedicated learning and training time and set up a reward and incentive program for completion.

Evaluate Your ROI

There’s no doubt about it—upskilling and reskilling are investments. But, tracking your employees’ engagement and measuring how improved skill sets have impacted your bottom line can make clear how worthwhile the investment is.

Building Skills for the Future

By investing in the upskilling and reskilling of your workforce, you’ll be reinforcing to your staff that even in these challenging times, their development is a priority to you. And once your company has figured out its new normal post-pandemic, you’ll be able to quickly scale up with a strong, resilient, adaptable team.

Final Thoughts

Each business must align their methods with their business objectives and requirements. Also, remember to consider different learning styles and balance these against individual employee needs.

Continued learning and development in the workplace have always been vital for businesses to grow and succeed. A stagnant workforce that does not move with the times will inevitably find itself lacking in the skills necessary to advance in the marketplace.

 

 

 

The Importance of Upskilling and Reskilling

The world is changing at a rapid pace. Regardless of whether the change is brought on by technology or societal shifts, learning has become necessary to stay competitive in the job market. According to the World Economic Forum, over half of all workers in India, will require upskilling and reskilling to meet the talent demands of the future.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a virtual conclave on World Youth Skills Day organized by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. The Prime Minister presented “a new mantra for the youth to skill, reskill and upskill” in order to remain relevant in the rapidly changing business environment and market conditions.

What exactly are Upskilling and Reskilling?

Upskilling is the process of teaching current employees’ new skills that will help them in thriving in their job and help them in becoming more efficient.

Reskilling focuses on teaching employees new and upcoming skills to do a different or more advanced job.

Benefits of Upskilling Employees

Improves retention-  Upskilling ensures employees' skillsets won’t become obsolete and shows the people you care about their careers and their futures. The best candidates will consistently move towards companies that offer upskilling and reskilling benefits. Talent is looking for employers who offer career development through on-the-job coaching to evolve their career in ways such as applying the skills needed to be a business analyst to transition into the role of an enterprise architect. Learning opportunities can, therefore, become a significant employer branding advantage.

Boosts morale- Employees who have training and development opportunities are happier in their roles and have a brighter outlook on their future with the company. Reskilling your workforce helps them see the path to career advancement in front of them, and gets them excited about what could be next. Knowing they’re working toward something that will better their lives creates a deeper sense of purpose.

Increases customer satisfaction- Upskilling keeps your workforce up to date on industry trends, allowing them to offer the best recommendations and insights to clients and prospects. Clients are willing to pay more to work with a more knowledgeable, proactive team. And when clients are happy with the work you do, they become stronger brand advocates for you.

Attracts new talent - Of course, when business is successful, chances are you will need new talent to add to your experienced, upskilled workforce. When employees feel a sense of purpose with their company and clients are happy with their work, they become stronger brand advocates. That means they’re more likely to recommend your organization to their network of friends, past colleagues and family members. Suddenly you have a wide pool of diverse talent to choose from when it comes time to expand your team. business models change and technology gains more prominence, employees equipped with the most necessary skillsets – both hard skills and soft – can steer organizational success in the right direction.

While the COVID-19 pandemic is a complicating factor, it’s important to think of upskilling as a key factor in the long-term stability and growth of an organization so that it can pivot in the face of challenges large and small. COVID-19 accelerated trends already in place and highlighted what companies already knew: the organizations you’ll be hearing about as success stories in two or three years are the ones who actively committed to retraining their workforce for business challenges ahead. Because of the pandemic, companies just have to evolve at a faster pace. And to do that, both they and their employees need to be smarter.