Strategies For Upskilling And Reskilling In The Era Of Digital Transformation -
The unprecedented technological advancements in the world of business have opened multiple avenues for companies to accelerate their growth. Upskilling and reskilling are no longer optional if companies want to reap the benefits of these developments in terms of increased productivity and revenue growth. They together play a pivotal role in streamlining operations by unleashing the latent potential of the company’s workforce.
Groom your existing workforce to build competence
The workforce is the spine of a business, and building a competent one is paramount. One approach to expanding the workforce's potential is by hiring new employees who are well-equipped with a wealth of knowledge and advanced skills. However, the cost of hiring can be prohibitively expensive. Instead, companies can engage in upskilling and reskilling their existing employees to nurture their underlying potential.
For instance, an assistant director can be reskilled with extensive training in public speaking to become an influential voice to represent the company. Or, the social media executive can be upskilled with a course on using advanced analytical tools to track the growth of social media channels and the success of a campaign.
They will undoubtedly save time, allowing them to approach strategy development more pragmatically and creatively. This method has the added benefit of increasing employee loyalty, which enables businesses to keep senior employees.
Streamlining the training process for greater impact
The scope and area of reskilling and upskilling will vary for each employee. Every employee, with their unique strengths and interests, will have different acumen and areas for improvement. Identifying the current gaps and the challenges that the employees are facing is the first step towards building upskilling and reskilling programs that can be more focused and personalized to have a lasting impact.
HRs with a large workforce, for example, can send out a Google Form to gain significant insights, whereas HRs with a significantly smaller workforce can conduct one-on-one interviews with employees to identify existing issues.
Passing on the knowledge within the company
Mentorship programs have become increasingly popular as they are not only cost-effective but also have a positive impact on a company’s work culture. It bridges communication gaps and fosters a culture of cooperation and harmony among employees. As the name suggests, senior employees, with their abundant knowledge and experience, facilitate the new employees and the existing ones in expanding their skills. In addition to saving the cost of outsourcing training professionals while keeping the privacy of the company intact. This goes a long way toward nurturing a healthy and productive work culture in which employee personal growth is valued as much as company growth.
Mobile first learning for greater accessibility and efficiency
Mobile-first learning involves e-learning methods that can be accessed on mobile phones. Every employee can benefit from it, as this learning module is easily accessible and doesn’t disrupt the routine. Employees can learn from it while travelling or performing tasks that do not require a lot of concentration and attention. For instance, an employee commuting for hours from the workplace to home can learn from an upskilling program, such as public speaking and communication, while travelling.
Job shadowing
Similar in concept to the above method, job shadowing allows inexperienced employees to closely observe experienced employees doing their job. This enables them to learn to tackle potential problems more successfully by vicarious learning while giving them a deeper understanding of their role
Incentivization
Employees need motivation to keep up productive learning and to make sure that they are on the right path. Motivation can be monetary including an increment in salary but it can also be non-monetary including verbal and written praise, public recognition, awards etc. Constant incentivization will keep them motivated to work hard towards their professional growth, which in turn will contribute towards the enhancement of the company's productivity.
Effective communication and constructive feedback
While learning new skills, the scope for improvement cannot be neglected. There is a need to track the progress of the employees through regular evaluations to make sure that they are learning and improving. This can be done by putting what they have learnt into practical use by assigning them tasks, projects etc. This can also be done by conducting quizzes or small questionnaires.
As market competition becomes more fierce, a company must invest in upskilling and reskilling its employees to avoid being crushed by the cutthroat competition. The process instils loyalty as a virtue while giving employees the confidence and motivation to move forward and deliver their best. Thus, companies can prevent attrition and avoid the huge cost of hiring.
