Upskilling & reskilling: Building a future-ready workforce

With a rapidly changing job landscape and accelerated pace of tech innovation and automation, HR managers have placed a high premium on upskilling and reskilling to understand the critical needs of the workforce. World Economic Forum’s research predicts that 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025. Furthermore, according to a ManpowerGroup report, 77% of employers report difficulty in filling roles. This data underpins the need for reskilling and upskilling to prepare employees for future roles.

However, how can organizations bridge these gaps efficiently and attune their workforce to evolving jobs and business needs?

The answer lies in a talent mobility strategy focusing on upskilling and reskilling employee.

Upskilling enhances employees’ skills, enabling them to acquire new skills within their current job function to improve performance. Upskilling helps employees bridge the skills gaps through continuous professional development. It is crucial as it allows employees to stay abreast of emerging business trends and practices, thus helping organizations stay competitive in the market.

Reskilling, on the other hand, is the process of acquiring new skills required to perform a different job role. Reskilling ensures that employees stay engaged, motivated, and eager to develop new skills and obtain expertise that will benefit the individual as well as the organization.

Businesses should administer employee upskilling and reskilling programs to keep them aligned with the ongoing trends; also, employees are more likely to showcase their best work in a company that attends to their development needs.

The employee upskilling or reskilling process involves imparting new skills and increasing employee competency and efficiency. The more skilled the workforce is, the easier it is for an organization to achieve desired outcomes and stand competitive in the market.

Some crucial points stating upskilling and reskilling importance have been outlined below:

While upskilling and reskilling are often interchangeable as they pertain to skills acquisition at large, they have subtle differences, as listed below:

Most organizations already have in place several learning assets/programs. These assets must be reviewed to ensure they meet the organization’s existing and future skills requirements. While reviewing the learning programs, the organization should consider the following:

• What more can be integrated into these programs to deliver an enriched learning experience?
• Are programs available in variegated forms, such as online, self-training, peer-to-peer, micro-learning, etc.?
• Are the learning programs aligned with employees’ needs?

The success of any upskilling and reskilling strategy is determined by how well the HR teams are aligned with the TA department. They must analyze which candidates they are looking for and which skills are critical for new hires. The L&D in charge can garner vital insights and leverage them to refine L&D programs.

The modern human resource and L&D processes are becoming much more streamlined with technology. These tools can help employers collect, store, and analyze valuable data to identify skills gaps and create a targeted plan for the right set of people.

The HR tech landscape is brimming with advanced software solutions to help organizations analyze skills gaps, conduct training needs assessments, and upskill and reskill their workforce.

Employees undertaking an upskilling or reskilling program must be kept abreast of the latest developments with regular feedback on their progress. These standard feedback loops will help organizations find top performers and improve opportunities in the training and development programs early on. 

Skill assessments help in identifying employees closest to the desired skill set. In addition, they enable organizations to understand skills gaps in their workforce. With these assessments, managers can assess the level of learning through upskilling/reskilling programs.

Mercer | Mettl empowers organizations to execute an end-to-end upskilling and reskilling strategy in simple steps. Mercer | Mettl Skills Gap Analysis helps businesses understand the training requirements to identify the current skills gaps and skills required through structured assessments. This is done through its robust and technologically advanced tools. The holistic assessment tools accurately and scientifically measure domain skills, coding skills, personality traits, cognitive ability and communication skills.

Some Mercer | Mettl tools that organizations can exclusively use for their upskilling and reskilling programs are:

1. Virtual Assessment and Development Centers (VADCs) 

Mercer | Mettl’s Virtual Assessment and Development Centers (VADCs) can help gauge candidates’ skills, fitment, and developmental needs in a company. VADCs automate the process using digital tools, helping organizations find high-potential workers, plan strategic employee development, and analyze training needs.

2. 360-Degree Feedback Tool

Mercer | Mettl’s 360-Degree Feedback Tool differs from conventional assessment software as it uses a multi-rater approach. The tool collects ratings from multiple sources, like peers, managers, and clients. Apart from making the performance evaluation seamless, the 360-Degree Feedback Tool also helps:

• Identify gaps in skills as perceived by other stakeholders
• Identify high-potential (HI-PO) employees
• Get a holistic overview of an employee’s performance

3. Training Needs Analysis

Mercer | Mettl’s Training Needs Analysis enable organizations to identify their training and skills requirements. It also helps design an effective training program that meets the business’s needs. The tool works in three simple steps:

• Identifying what to train in
• Selecting agile learners who can be quickly trained
• Measuring the effectiveness of the training programs.

As the business landscape continues to change, organizations need to understand the importance of upskilling and reskilling programs. Such programs can help organizations thrive despite economic uncertainties and pivot with changing demands.