Future-proof Your Organization with Upskilling and Reskilling

To outperform your competition, invest in growth, or make an impact as an organization, you must train your employees in future-proof skills. Besides, a boom can be seen in digitization, affecting our entire way of working. Automation and data exchange count among the biggest changes in the present and future of work. It is time to see skills and training as core competencies and develop them in your workforce. Only then can you sustain in business today.

This blog talks about how upskilling and reskilling help your business to gear up for future success. But before understanding that, let’s look at the basics.

Define Upskilling

Honing the skills of each worker to complement new aspects of their current job is what upskilling means. You train people but keep them in the same roles. You must customize upskilling to the future needs of your organization. Your upskilling program must ascertain the following dynamics:

• setting measurable goals,
• identifying your business’ high-priority areas,
• recognizing skills gaps in these areas,
• considering the budgetary allowance, and engaging and empowering employees with the cooperation of the management.

Define Reskilling

Reskilling is about teaching or training a new skill to an existing employee whose job has become obsolete due to the change in current business requirements. Due to the constantly changing digital and technology landscapes, some jobs will become less relevant while others grow critical.

In such a scenario, you must execute a reskilling policy. Retain your current employees and use their talents for something else. Let’s take an example to understand this better. If your IT employees work with legacy systems, reskill them. Once they earn specialization in the fields of cybersecurity and cloud computing, your company is ready to take on the future. A robust reskilling policy also says those with exceptional interpersonal skills or great work ethics must stay with the organization.

Benefits of Upskilling

Increase employee retention

by investing in your people’s learning. Doing so increases your employees’ value for your organization, and they begin to feel they are worth the investment. Understanding they have a place in your company’s future, they stay and advance their career in their current jobs.

Identify and fill the skills gap

by training your existing employees. Often, it is easier and more affordable to address the skills gap in your organization instead of finding and hiring new people.

Save money

by launching good upskilling programs. Instead of letting your staff hop jobs and thus lose talent, you can invest in upskilling your employees. You will, hence, realize a high return on the invested money and time.

Further a learning culture

by encouraging employees to learn and stay updated. Help them take relevant courses while working. Your staff thus remains highly satisfied, and turnover is also low. You also gain a competitive advantage in the market.

Better your employees’ efficiency and productivity

by offering the best workplace education to your workforce. Put your money in upskilling programs, help your workers grow their productivity, and thus set your business up for success.

Benefits of Reskilling

Decrease costs of hiring and training

A new hire for a skilled role may cost almost 20% more than employees that organizations reskill to implement the same tasks. As you reskill your existing employees, you don’t need to train them in company processes, protocols, software, etc. This saves you money and time. Besides, new hires cost a lot of money, and for highly skilled positions, they demand higher salaries. You can save that by updating the knowledge and skills of your current employees.

Hone Employee Morale

Employees feel valued when given chances to grow their skills and promote to higher positions in the company. Your employees develop a feeling of job security and are more dedicated to their job. With higher self-esteem at work, they produce high-quality work.

Retain Knowledgeable Employees and Reduce Time-to-Market

Your existing employees know well how the company works, and when you reskill and retain such knowledgeable employees, they pass the requisite information to new and less experienced employees. Moreover, people with solid company knowledge can quickly finish tasks, leading to fast production of high-quality products, less time-to-market, and improved profits.

Enhance the Company’s Reputation

You increase your company’s reputation when you value your current workforce and reskill them instead of asking them to leave on failing at a task. Not only do you earn their trust and save on costs, but also, new talent attracts toward your brand and shows interest in joining your organization. After all, who doesn’t want to be a part of an employee-centric organization?

To enable your employees to take up courses and thus empower themselves with learning, it isn’t a bad idea to consider an employee experience platform.