The world is always in a state of rapid change – new technology, apps, trends or methods of working that we must keep up with and adapt alongside, otherwise we get left behind.
Before, businesses may have simply hired new staff to cope with any changes in their industry, in order to gain access to those skills. However, with change in constant motion, rehiring is not always a viable option for many businesses.
So, instead of looking elsewhere for new skills, many businesses focus on their existing workforce – skilling, upskilling and reskilling. This way, you are being flexible and giving your team the chance to learn, grow and gain new skills. You can transform your workforce, allowing you to better meet the challenges of modern-day business.
Skilling
Industries across the world are facing problems with skill gaps. In order to face this problem, businesses can take existing members of their organisation and put time and effort into training them up. This prevents you from needing to search for specialists, and has the added bonus of providing your employees with an incentive to stay at your business for the benefit of their development.
However, this approach means your recruitment approach needs to change. Businesses need to focus on taking on employees who have the potential to be skilled, looking at qualities like enthusiasm and ability to learn and grow. This is a practical solution and means you can invest in talent from the beginning.
Reskilling
As technology and the digital landscape change, some jobs will become less relevant while other jobs suddenly become crucial and in demand. As new technologies and trends develop, businesses may struggle to hire people to work on technologies that have only just become prominent.
In order to adapt to new and evolving technologies, businesses can implement a reskilling policy. This means that although your talented employees may find their expertise becoming less relevant, you can still retrain them and put their good talent and capabilities to use elsewhere in a different role. This way, their talent does not become obsolete, but rather is focused somewhere new, and you do not need to hire someone new.
The big benefit of reskilling is that you can strengthen your businesses talent base by unlocking your existing employees potential to adapt and rise to new challenges.
Upskilling
Lastly, businesses need to be prepared for upskilling. Unlike reskilling, this involves training existing employees up but keeping them in the same roles, rather than changing their jobs.
This is important because you will need a talented management team to deal with the need for skilling and reskilling. You want to identify the employees with the most potential and offer them all the training they need to develop into a leader.
Employees now value learning and growing in a business. Businesses must shift focus toward providing a library of courses, resources and training that enable learning. This will help build a highly-skilled and continuously improving workforce, ready to take the business to new heights. Eventually, upskilling and reskilling will become embedded in your business’ DNA so that it succeeds and thrives in the digital age.
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