How often is the following happening to your company? A front office employee leaves to pursue a new career in sales or marketing when your company is actively hiring for the same position.
Your most reliable worker suddenly jumps ship to another company with a more comprehensive learning and development package.
Your usually award-winning team is stuck in a rut, and innovation is taking a back seat.
If any of these seem familiar, it’s time to re-evaluate your upskilling and reskilling offerings.
What is Upskilling
Skilling
Training employees to perform their current jobs competently.
Upskilling
Helping employees advance their skills to thrive in their current roles.
Reskilling
Helping employees learn new skills to thrive in different roles.
Why Upskilling and Reskilling Is Important
If your company invests in education, it shows your workers that you care about their career and future. These employees then have a brighter outlook and perform better in their roles. Working toward a goal will make them more involved, engaged, and loyal.
As a matter of fact, 8 out of 10 employees say upskilling makes them more productive, and 94 percent say they would stay longer at a company that invests in their career.
Research also shows that companies rating highly on employee training see 53% less turnover.
RETAINING TALENT
According to a recent report, 59 percent of learning and development professionals say their companies are focusing on upskilling and reskilling efforts this year — a 15 percent increase over last year.
Some of this upskilling will be to bring everyone up to date on working practices. For example, teaching employees how to structure their workday after switching from an in-person model to a hybrid-remote model will help improve productivity.
In addition to creating a productive and knowledgeable workforce, providing on-the-job training can benefit your company in other ways, as well.
BETTER BRAND REPUTATION
In turn, happier employees make for happier customers. Since your employees will be better educated about the industry, they will pass on this knowledge to your clients. Clients will then be eager to talk about their excellent experience with your company.
ATTRACTING NEW TALENT
When your existing employees are happy, they’re more apt to recommend your company to their network, bringing more diverse talent to your table.
Research shows that 91 percent of Millennials favor career development over other benefits when choosing a new employer.
Younger workers are looking for opportunities to advance up the same role in incremental promotions (i.e., assistant, manager, senior manager), and having an upskilling plan for this career path can help your employees meet these goals.
The faster this path is set out — during onboarding, for example — the more likely the new hire will be to stay.
Tips and Tools for Upskilling Your Employees
The first step to creating a training program for your company is to evaluate your company’s current talent and the goals you want to work toward, then make an organization plan.
Make sure your plan pinpoints:
- Skills your current workforce already has
- Skills your current workforce lacks
- Skills your company will need in the future
- Employees who have the capability to upskill or retrain in new approaches or technology
- Methods you will use for training
- What will happen to employees who do not make the leap during training
- Create educational guides
- Develop guides to help your company retain knowledge if someone leaves.
- Offer mentorships from more seasoned coworkers
You can choose many methods for training, or offer several different methods to account for different learning styles.
Here are a few ideas:
- Lunch-and-Learn sessions (such as in-person lectures and seminars, online tutorials, e-Learning exercises)
- Virtual learning courses (optimal in the time of remote work and beyond)
- Platforms for self-enablement (digital tools such as content improvement solutions)
- Microlearning (use e-Learning platforms for quick bursts of information)
- Mentoring and coaching programs
- Training classes (either internally with experienced colleagues, or external opportunities including college classes and seminars)
You can learn more about how Alloy prioritizes your people to build a culture of happy and effective employees.
Alloy is a culture & employer branding agency that evaluates, aligns, and syncs your three critical pillars of business to powerfully impact the bottom line.
