Where do you see yourself after 10 years in your career? You must want yourself in a higher position than your present one. Is it possible to achieve the goal without uplifting your skills? We all know the answer. So, the reputed brands give scopes to the employees to improve their performance with better skills and develop their careers. You will get to see different training programs conducted to help the employees in using their highest potential. It is not only useful for the employees and their improvements but also for the companies. This helps in improving overall production by upskilling programs for the employees.
Upskilling, in brief,
You may remember that the emperors used to train their soldiers and improve their skills depending on their basic knowledge. They used to train a few for water war, again few were trained in swordsmanship. One who was an expert in swordsmanship used to get training to improve it rather than knowing new skills for a water war. As a result, the teams used to be strong enough to fight against their enemies. The same concept goes with upskilling.
Uplifting skills is the meaning of the word “upskilling”. An employee needs to learn new skills and improve the existing abilities to reach the best position in the career. An employee should have a goal to become a master of the existing skills to produce the best for the organization. When the employees improve their existing skills and take that to another level, the process is known as uplifting skills. On the other hand, when employees learn new skills to perform another task for the organization, it becomes reskilling.
Reskilling and upskilling are two different ways of escalating the potential of the employees and improving the production of the organization. Upskilling never includes learning new skills to perform some other task. Rather employees understand how efficiently they can perform the same task by upgrading their skills.
Nourishing and upgrading the skills that you need to grow depends on your professional position. The agencies conduct developmental training programs relevant to the skills, future job roles, and responsibilities. The requirements of upskilling are essential. Because it helps in developing skills for handling more complex projects, leading newcomers, and securing the future of their careers. So, the importance of upskilling both in individual growth and company growth is undeniable.
Why should you implement upskilling programs?
In the era of cut-throat competition, as an employer, it is your responsibility to invest in something meaningful. So, before implementing the upskill programs, employers need to understand if is it really essential for your agency. Let us check the answer from the following portion.
Better results in employee retention
Employee retention has become a challenge today for mid to large-scale companies. Most employees switch to another job with the hope of developing their skills and earning better opportunities. Upskilling programs are similar initiatives that make employees and organizations beneficial. The employees get the best scope for improving the skills that they can use in the future of their careers. So, the employees prefer companies where such developmental scopes are present.
Skill gap fill-up
Investing in the existing employees is a better experience than hiring a new employee and expecting to get similar output. The existing and reputed employees know the work pattern of your company and they also know your target audiences. So developing their skills is always a better idea to meet the requirements of the consumers and take your company to the next level. The management should implement upskilling programs depending on the requirements of the skills of the employees. These programs work as the best scope for filling up the skill gaps in the field.
Cost-saving initiative
There are many initiatives you can take to continue the outflow of production at your organization. But when you lose potential employees and search for new ones, spend money on advertising, rehiring, and training the newly joined employee. On the other hand, you need to spend less than that to conduct a successful upskilling program. This also helps to retain the existing employee. So, this is an affordable initiative that organizations from mid to large scale take to get growing output.
Healthy working culture
A culture of learning and developing skills at the workplace is always preferable to potential employees. So implementing the upskilling program is a good way of making the working culture healthy and educational. Employees who find a good place to grow in their careers must prefer a company that organizes upskilling programs.
Healthy competition in the workplace
Conducting upskilling program can give your employees the best scope to stand one step forward in the crowd. The organization where the potential companies attend the upskilling programs gets rewards and other encouraging incentives. The professional career development encourages others to attend the program as well and as a result overall production increases.
These are the main 5 benefits of conducting successful upskilling programs. Now if you find these convincing for your employees then you can check the following part where the guideline for upskilling programs is given.
How to plan and execute successful upskilling programs?
Upskilling programs should be relevant to the production and services of a company. It helps the conducted upskilling programs to prepare your employees for future projects. The success of the upskilling program is not how many employees attend the program. But it lies in how they perform and whether the management team can achieve the developmental goals or not. It is essential to follow a guideline that helps in conducting successful upskilling programs.
- Check the required skills to achieve the company’s goal
Before investing in an upskilling program, the agency should check the future requirements for the employees. The management needs to understand the future goal and scopes of the company in the market. Then they need to plan the required skills among the employees and where the existing team is lacking. The management needs to analyze and determine which skills the employees need to polish to meet consumers’ requirements. Depending on this analysis they need to plan the upskilling program for the employees.
- Select the potential candidates
It is very important to understand whether the employees have the potential to take a training program for upskilling or not. Sometimes, the selection of employees for a specific training program depends on their performance. Some companies prefer to train a team that the employers choose to take the responsibility for the specific upcoming project. Sometimes, the upskilling programs are meant for an entire department. So, checking the potential and the position of the employees should be clear to the employers when they plan for the upskilling programs.
It is not enough to check the abilities of the employees before conducting the upskilling program. The employers should understand whether the manager can take the responsibility for developing the skills of the employees or not. Without checking these points, you can not earn success in the upskilling programs.
- Select the right pattern for upskilling program
People learn in three different ways and those are visual learning, audio learning, and tactical learning. You must get these three types of learners in a group of employees whom you want to upskill successfully. So, the upskill program should be a mix of these three types of learning processes. And the experts should represent this in an easy-to-understand way. The projection of the training program is easy to handle in different ways in the era of technology. If you are arranging it online then give access to all the employees who are in the upskilling programs. If you want to arrange a one-to-one training program then you need to connect the employee with the trainer properly.
- Sum up properly
The ending should always be impressive so that the session leaves an impression on the mind of the employees. The trainers should also end the session properly and understand the reaction of the employee. The managers should also debrief the points so that the employees can understand the major points of the session and keep those in mind while working on future projects.
Useful strategies for upskilling
The market is becoming a tough place to exist for companies that depend on the traditional ways of running a business. The implementation of modern technology has made the market more competitive and the audiences have become more responsive. Every company from a similar industry is searching for a new way of existence and to go one step forward from the other company by serving the best to the consumers. The agencies use the employees to improve production. So, the potential of the employees should be up to the mark so that they can meet the growing demand of the agencies. For these reasons, upskilling has become an integral part of every agency.
If the concept of upskilling and its importance is clear to you, then let us look into the next part of the article which is about the strategies for proper upskilling.
- Let HR be a part of the upskilling program
Any developmental initiative for the employees of your agency should be a part of the human resource department. The human resource department should check the arrangement so that the employees can comfortably complete the program. And they also get a learning atmosphere in the agency. The administrators can conduct the programs through online platforms, videos, conference meetings, technical certification programs, and more. It is the responsibility of the HR department to guide the employees properly so that they can understand the steps to progress further for upskilling.
- Check the interest of the employee
You need not always give options to your employees when you feel the requirement of a developmental program. But you can also check whether your employees are interested in uplifting the specific skills or taking the training or not. In such cases, the employers can divide the employees into groups of interested ones and uninterested ones. The implementation of upskilling programs can be started with the interested ones. The chances of success of the upskilling programs become higher with interested employees. The upskilling of the employees can drive them to the next level in the profession and that encourages the other team the next time.
- Encourage employees
Do you remember the days when we are afraid of reading a subject and examinations used to knock on the door? Our elders used to encourage us so that we learn and cross the examination successfully. That is what you need to do with your employees when a few employees show interest in an upskilling program.
Incentives or rewards work well as encouraging tips for the employees and insist they take part in the upskilling program. Sometimes, the employers also offer a certificate to the participants of the upskilling programs. These rewards encourage the employees to take the training.
- Give an outline of upskilling program benefits
No knowledge goes in vain and in the professional world, every single scope of developing skills is essential to go up. The upskilling programs are meant to add benefits to the profile of the employees in the competitive market. But you need to make this concept clear to the employees so that they find the reasons behind attending the upskilling program. The management should give an outline of the training program and its benefits to employees. It helps them to make positive decisions.
Upskilling employees is essential to improve productivity and prepare them to deal with future projects and compete with other companies. In the modern days, the implementation of different technology has made the process of upskilling more interesting and effective. The management checks the requirement details of the clients and set up the right upskilling program for the eligible candidates. This is a useful process to increase the production of the company and the ability of the employees.