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.

 

HR Trends 2020

Emerging HR trends in 2020!!

Today let see HR trends. As we near the end of this year, it’s time to watch out for emerging HR trends in 2020.

 

According to Forrester, more than 47% of interviewed executives believe that by 2020, technology will have an impact on more than half of their sales as well as the future workplace trends.

 

Organizations will focus on embracing HR technology to their advantage, strengthening workforce capabilities, ensuring data security, improving candidate and employee experiences, and more.

  

HR trends-

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

In the year 2020, AI-driven solutions will provide immense innovation across industries. Recruiters can be reliant on them. However, robots cannot replace human tenacity entirely but it is sure to add on to their abilities. AI Powered recruitment solution will help in filtering the high volume of resumes and pre-qualifying candidates based on the job description and skills. Such solutions will be more in demand in the coming year as recruiters would be able to identify a candidate’s personality traits and predict their suitability for a job role. This would not only reduce the hiring efforts but also encourage unbiased candidate assessment.

Rise of freelancing or on-demand hiring

Freelancing the structure will dominate the HR industry in the near-term. Recruiting on an hourly basis or project basis drops the cost for the employers and gives higher flexibility to employees. When the candidates are hired on a temporary or part-time basis, he/she is required to be compensated with a smaller amount as compared to a full-time employee. On-demand hiring also boosts the in-house talent acquisition of the company. Indeed, freelancing has generated an ecosystem for talent with temporary jobs focused on proficiency.

Use of chatbot

Chatbot is software that conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods. It uses natural language processing and can initiate a human-like communication. Candidates can get their all FAQs answered through this tool. Implementation of chatbot in the HR industry ensures 24*7 availability and 'on-demand' availability.

HR analytics/performance analytics

HR analytics or performance analytics can help recruiters to improve employee engagement and retention. These run on machine learning algorithms and aid in gathering, organizing and analyzing the data related to HR. Overall, that would add to the expansion of the organization. HR analytics will play a prominent role in:

·        Implementing best, proven recruiting practices

·        Reducing employee turnover

·        Increasing employee experience and satisfaction

·        Managing task automation and process improvement

·        Increasing workforce productivity and engagement

·        Improving workforce planning and talent development

Employee Experience Platforms

Today, employees expect a lot more than just good pay and an ideal work environment. Employees do not hesitate to review and rate their company culture, work policies, growth opportunities, compensation, and more on employment review websites like Glassdoor, Indeed, etc.

Employees share their experiences on these platforms publicly that can impact the reputation of their company. Thus, improving the employee experience is the need of the hour. Global HR experts suggest taking the help of advanced HR technology solutions to enhance employee experience.

With the rapid digital transformation, multiple HCM platforms have come up in the market, yet there are very few which provide the desired employee experience. These enterprise HR solutions are highly customizable and configurable, yet lack in employee engagement and development capabilities.

The year 2020 will see a shift of focus to employee experience platforms (EXP).

The EXP will provide an integrated solution to manage coaching, career development, benefits administration, onboarding, performance management and payroll on a single platform in an intuitive manner. With the evolution of EXP in the upcoming years, we will see a dramatic shift in the way organizations embrace technology and manage processes to empower employees.

 On the Job Training

Employees require continuous mentoring, training and skill development to perform well in their jobs. Continuous learning improves employee skills, making employees more adaptive to the work environment and preparing them to take up different roles in their company.

The year 2020 will see organizations investing in Virtual and augmented reality, gamification, geofencing, and other techniques to impart on-the-job training to their workforce.

Feedback Tools to Improve Engagement

Organizations will move forward with well-thought strategies to improve workforce engagement through HR technology innovations.

The emerging HR trends in 2020 will encourage the use of employee engagement tools and survey platforms to capture employee opinions and feedback.

Employee satisfaction surveys would help you to connect with your employees and promote engagement and profitability. These feedback tools will help management understand employee concerns and take corrective action plans to retain the best talent.

Final Thought

Each year, global HR leaders come up with predictions on emerging HR trends. Their predictions are based on an entire year’s study and analysis of human resource practices and evolving technology.

Though trends may come and go, don’t make an uninformed decision to follow these blindly. Experts suggest that HR should study yearly predictions, analyze what works best for their organization, and then implement these in a phased manner.

If there are any more trends that you would like to add to the list of these emerging HR trends in 2020, please share your thoughts in the comments below.