What is Upskilling in the Workplace?

Posted on 28th January 2022

We are now living in a more industrialized and modern world but still face skill problems. Aside from that, the current jobs worldwide are threatened with widespread automation. Other companies are problematic since they lack several talents who are knowledgeable about the digital economy.

These two problems combined resulted in a wider gap between the current employees and the talent pipelines in the future. Thus, many establishments have started to adapt to upskilling in the workplace.

Employees are the key driver to company success. Thus, you need to ensure that they are well-equipped with the skills and abilities needed for their work. In line with that, you will need a customized and well-researched plan that will help you to upskill new employees in the workplace.

Aside from that, you should also be aware of the number of establishments that will require these skills, the number of individuals who need to master these skills, and the technology-driven learning and training grounds that will make those goals possible.

Considering the competitive market, each employee in a workplace – from top to bottom, should constantly augment or improve the set of skills they currently have. Take note that ‘skills’ does not only talk about the ability to access technology; it is also about learning how to generate new ideas for the benefit of the whole establishment.

What are the Things You Can Do To Make Your Strategic Upskilling Initiative a Success?

Every company owner wants to upskill his/her employees. The problem is that most of these owners don’t know when and how to start.

Worry no more because, in this post, you will learn the six fundamental action steps toward a successful upskilling strategy. Read on to know further.

Assess the Situation and Know the Initiative

It is important to keep in mind that different situations vary from one another. The first step you should do is to start a conversation with the company’s key stakeholders, including employee representatives, HR leaders, and senior executives.

Design a Skills Plan

For the past few years, many companies enforced reskilling programs. Unfortunately, they provided it to the wrong groups of individuals. Create a focused and objective skills plan approach. Consider the number of workers who will be affected by innovative technologies when creating your priorities. .

When integrating new technology into your company, you must know how much impact it will bring to your establishment. In this case, you may use different analytic workforce planning tools. These tools will also help you to determine the new sets of abilities that the technology will require, an estimated amount of savings you will generate using the automation, and how long it will take to see notable improvements to these changes.

Assess and Advise Individual Employees

Individual transformation covers different forms that may affect the participant, which will usually require them to get out of their comfort zones. A well-planned assessment program should include giving advice that will help employees alleviate their fears.

You should also assess the skill set of your potential talents, know their professional and personal ambitions, and quantify their career achievements.

Match Jobs and Engage Workers

Finding the best match is not an easy task. In that case, you may consider using IT systems that can assess the skills of potential candidates if they will match the necessary competencies asked by the job.

Aside from that, you may also deepen and achieve a wider talent pool through the use of machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence.

Administer the Project and Track Results

Employees and employers may need to have significant adjustments when upskilling programs are enforced. You may turn your HR departments into administrators. It is also recommended to utilize modern GR tools to keep an eye even on the small progress or results of the project administered.
Employers should also generate strategies that will allow employees to connect with their colleagues. You can do this through online platforms, informal meetings, support groups, and more.