Upskilling Your Workforce: How to Run a Successful Training Programme
To remain competitive in 2022 and beyond, organisations need to invest in upskilling existing employees in key areas and skills.
Table of Contents
What is an Upskilling Programme?
Upskilling falls under the umbrella of talent development activities. It describes the further training that an individual may undertake to widen, update or specialise their professional skill-set. In 2021, an increasing number of organisations are realising that upskilling programmes are an effective way to bring their workforce into Industry 4.0.
Industry 4.0 & The Looming Skills Crisis
Recent years have seen significant advancements in the field of digital technologies (e.g. automation, analytics, IoT, AI) that are transforming the way we work. A key challenge for today’s organisations is figuring out how to prepare their workforce for the fourth industrial revolution. Organisations that fail to embrace these new technologies are likely to fall victim to digital Darwinism.
“As it currently stands, 25% of the global workforce will either need to find new professional activities by 2020 or significantly broaden their technological skills as well as their digital citizenship and classic skills, including their cross-disciplinary skills.”
– “Closing the Future Skills Gap”, McKinsey
Numerous studies have revealed that there is a profound structural shift taking place in the workforce, as skills and occupations that were once essential are heading towards irrelevance. Employers have a key leadership role to play when it comes to addressing this looming skills crisis.
Why Start an Upskilling Programme?
Employee Retention
Upskilling initiatives demonstrate that your organisation values its employers and is invested in their growth. In a recent TalentLMS survey, 58% of participants agreed that upskilling has had a highly positive effect on employee retention rates. This retention boost will result in additional benefits including improved employee engagement and decreased recruitment costs.
Boost Morale & Productivity
Upskilling initiatives have also been linked with improved levels of employee morale, engagement and motivation. Happier employees not only contribute to a more pleasant working environment but also lead to better productivity and ROI for your organisation. TalentLMS data backs this up with 91% of companies and 81% of employees saying upskilling/reskilling training has boosted productivity at work.
“Good employees always want to continue moving up, forward, earning more, learning more, etc. If they aren’t offered continuous opportunity to grow their skills, grow personally and learn new things that interest them… or earn enough in compensation and benefits to make them feel comfortable, then they will look elsewhere for a career and company that does offer these things.”
– “What Makes Good Employees Quit?”, Buzzz
Enhance Your Employee Value Proposition
According to Gallup, 87% of millennials look for professional development and career growth opportunities in their jobs. Demonstrating your organisation’s commitment to talent development can have a hugely beneficial effect on your reputation. Satisfied employees are more likely to spread the word about your organisation and leave positive reviews on online platforms. This positive PR can only strengthen your employee value proposition which will make it easier to entice high-impact professionals to join your organisation.
Upskilling & The Rise of Hybrid Employees
Another way in which the jobs market has changed is the rise of hybrid employees. Increasingly, employers are seeking candidates who have a range of skills that wouldn’t traditionally be found on the same CV together. Hybrid employees are adaptable and can work across a diverse range of projects. In a 2019 report, Burning Glass analysed a database of nearly a billion job ads and forecast that 25% of jobs show signs of hybridisation. They identified five key areas were hybrid employees were particularly sought after:
- Big data and analytics
- The intersection of design and development
- Sales and customer service
- Emerging digital technologies
- Evolving compliance and regulatory landscape
Whereas 42% of traditional jobs could be automated, just 12% of hybrid jobs could be automated. As such, it makes sense for employers to look into ways of hybridising their workforce in order to get the most out of their employees.
Who to Target?
Organisations with limited resources may want to initially focus their upskilling efforts on the people that need it the most. So how do you identify these?
- The first thing you should do is to analyse trends in your industry and identify the people within your organisation who are likely to be affected by these changes.
- Alternatively, you could take a top-down approach by starting with management. This might be a good place to start as 74% of employees think their managers need reskilling and upskilling training.
Once you have identified your test group, carefully consider how you could tailor the content and delivery of the course to their needs, abilities, interests and values.
Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills
Once you have identified a group of employees to participate in an upskilling programme, the next step is to determine the skills you will target.
“…businesses also see the nurturing of human skills, particularly leadership, creativity, empathy and curiosity, as essential if they are to take advantage of the potential benefits of new technologies. As a result, although purely functional skills related to automation and AI are often essential for business growth, they are not enough; they won’t suffice without these more ‘high-touch’ managerial and people-oriented capabilities.”
– “Talent Trends 2019”, PwC
For those in highly-technical roles, you may wish to help them to develop soft skills that will enable them to collaborate better or progress into management positions. Whereas, employees whose work demands a high level of soft skills may benefit from a course on hard skills that may help them to perform more efficiently or communicate better with more technical divisions.
For many companies, it is a challenge to predict what digital skills will be required over the next five to ten years. Many digital skills have a short shelf life, so it’s important to invest in the ones that are right for you. However, a survey of executives in the US, found that 42% admit they currently lack a “good understanding of how automation and/or digitization will affect our future skills needs.” As such, it is key to develop up-to-the-minute industry knowledge so you can confidently identify the skills that your workforce needs to work on now.
Upskilling Your Workforce: A Step-by-Step Guide
1. Consider how an upskilling programme could support your organisation’s overall goals.
2. Complete a company-wide skills audit and identify gaps in your current employees’ knowledge. You could do this by holding discussions with co-workers, managers, and leadership, sending out an organization-wide survey or by running focus groups.
3. Compare the various upskilling methods and find the one that works best for your organisation. Weigh them up in terms of effectiveness, cost, ease of implementation and employee convenience. Some options include:
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- Classroom Training
- Blended Learning
- Virtual Classroom Training
- Microlearning
- Lunch and Learn sessions
- Mentors
4. Compile your research and ideas into an upskilling strategy report and present to the relevant stakeholders. Be sure to highlight how this programme aligns with the organisation’s overall goals and identify metrics that will measure how the programme is supporting these goals.
5. Once you have buy-in from leadership, consider how your organisation can foster a culture of learning. In other words, how can you support employees in their learning endeavors. A key part of this is to allocate time for employees to upskill so that they don’t have to study when they’re off the clock.
6. Continuously seek out feedback from upskilling programme participants so you can tweak and improve it.
7. Upon completion of the programme, arrange a meeting with the participants so you can discuss their feedback and create a post-training action plan.
Case Study: Amazon
In July 2019, Amazon launched “Upskilling 2025” – a $700 million programme aimed at retraining and developing 100,000 of its employees over the course of the next six years. The initiative targets employees across various locations in the US including its corporate offices, technology centers, warehouses, retail stores and transportation hubs. As the retail giant automates more and more of its processes, this initiative will help employees to transition to new positions by teaching them in-demand skills for fast-growing technical and non-technical roles such as data mapping specialist, data scientist, software and security engineers and business analyst roles. Ardine Williams, Vice President of People Operations, Amazon, in an interview on the Chief Learning Officer blog outlined further by stating that the programme was designed to “meet employees where they are and create opportunities for them to build on the skills that they have.”
Have a question about how to upskill your employees? Why not talk to one of our consultants today!