If knowledge is a power, then learning is a superpower.
In a car race like Formula 1, one of the most important keys to victory is the constant updating and improvement of the car. Leading teams usually introduce new parts for almost every next Grand Prix. And to get decisive seconds in the fight for victory, you need well-honed teamwork and special tools for quick pit stops. Modern business works on a similar principle: to stay on the market pedestal, companies must constantly improve. Effective tools for such development are upskilling and reskilling. Upskilling means improving the qualifications of a specialist within their current specialization, and reskilling is retraining to master new skills, often necessary for a new role. Both processes play a key role in personnel development, because effective acquisition of new skills, team cohesion and the ability to quickly adapt to changes provide those winning “seconds” that can cost victory in the pursuit of leadership.
According to research, 80% of employees who have completed training programs feel more confident in their skills. Moreover, the WEF (World Economic Forum) reports that more than three quarters of young workers (Millennials and Gen Z) are ready to change jobs if they are not provided with training and professional growth opportunities. In addition, upskilling and reskilling are a mutually beneficial exchange of guarantees between the company and the employee and are a long-term investment in talent development. Upskilling and reskilling processes help the company maintain the relevance of its services, ensure a high level of qualification in the team and reduce the costs of finding and adapting new employees.
Benefits of upskilling and reskilling for a specialist:
- Career growth
- Income growth
- Adaptation to changes
- Improved motivation
- Development of soft skills
Benefits of upskilling and reskilling for HR:
- Personnel retention
- Team efficiency
- Reducing recruiting costs
- Improving the employer brand
- Compliance with new HR trends, challenges and technologies
But how do you understand which specialists need to retrain, and who just needs to improve their skills in their current specialization? The SMART business team offers to look into how to correctly implement upskilling and reskilling processes in a company.
Upskilling: When Your Career Gets an Upgrade
Successful upskilling helps close the skills gap, which is steadily growing due to the aging workforce and the rapid development of digitalization. It is safe to say that upskilling is the personal evolution of a specialist in a company. In the era of self-awareness, people are increasingly paying attention to their own development and finding the best options for self-realization.
In the last few years, especially after the mass transition of companies to a remote work format, specialists have been increasingly requesting advanced training. Thus, the requirements for communication, time management, the use of digital tools and the quality of self-discipline are changing. After all, while in the office, employees can rely on the constant exchange of experience and quick feedback from colleagues and management. In remote work, such resources are less available, and employees need to adapt to new conditions. Remote work requires a higher level of independence, the ability to plan your time, prioritize tasks and find a balance between work and personal life. This factor often involves learning time management techniques and self-control. And, as practice shows, if a company cannot provide opportunities for staff development, it loses both the qualifications in the market and the loyalty of its specialists.
You can determine the need for upskilling by evaluating performance, employee satisfaction surveys, and monitoring new requirements and changes in the industry. In general, upskilling is suitable for everyone, but the need often arises in the following groups of specialists:
- Technical specialists: Workers who face constant changes in technology (for example, programmers, marketers, lawyers, developers). Usually, these changes require the development of technical or cognitive skills, such as critical and innovative thinking, adaptability, digital awareness.
- Middle managers: To manage a rapidly evolving team, middle managers need new skills in leadership (to find out how exactly to develop these skills, read our article on investing in personal growth), project management, strategy and analytics. They can also benefit from skills in digital technology management to meet new market demands.
- Customer Service Specialists: These employees are faced with ever-changing customer requests and innovations in customer service technologies, such as chatbots and CRM systems. Upskilling allows them to improve their communication skills and become familiar with new tools to improve customer experience.
- Marketers and Sales Specialists: Due to the development of digital marketing and data analytics, sales and marketing specialists must learn to use new platforms for customer acquisition, data analysis, and CRM.
- New Hires: Employees who have just joined the company may require additional training to quickly adapt to the specifics of the business and master the necessary skills.
Sometimes employees believe that they are ready for training and upskilling but cannot clearly articulate how exactly they see themselves developing within the company. In this case, the best tactic is one-on-one meetings with an HR specialist, where an atmosphere is created that is safe enough for the specialist to verbalize their desires and motivations. However, keep in mind that by this point the company should have at least several strategies that can be offered to the employee for development. Encourage initiatives, talk to people, give them the right to make mistakes.
After individual meetings with HR, the employee will most likely be ready to determine his or her career path. Since this is a painstaking and technical matter, technological tools for automating processes can be good assistants here. For example, SMART HCM & LMS offers a wide range of features that not only save time, but also make the personnel development process more structured: tools for working with competencies and self-assessment; creating career profiles; creating an interactive training plan with ongoing feedback, etc.
What tactics are best for upskilling specialists? Let’s look at the most effective ones:
- Universal training: universal training courses with tests often help expand a specialist’s basic skills and prepare them for more complex specialized tasks. Thanks to these programs, a company can provide the same starting level of specialists for further specific development.
- Position expansion and duty shifts: since the labor market is constantly evolving, specialists need to quickly master new skills for their current position, for example, the latest technologies or additional ways of communicating with clients. And sometimes, to better understand the interconnected processes in a company and build more productive communication with colleagues, the practice of duty shifts is used when a specialist “exchanges” a position with a colleague from a related area for a certain period. For example, financial analysts can work for a certain time in the positions of budget managers to better understand the budget processes and the company’s expense structure.
- Coaching and mentoring: sharing experience within the company is one of the most effective upskilling tactics. In this case, the company should improve communication between colleagues, implement internal educational courses and assign a mentoring course from employees who are more experienced in a particular issue.
- Lectures and courses from successful specialists: an example of success is perhaps the best motivation for personal development. It is important for specialists to see that the upskilling path they are going to take really brings good results and makes sense for their position. In this case, lectures and courses from specialists outside the company will bring significant benefits.
An example of successful upskilling is Walmart. This company, through its Live Better U program, covers 100% of the cost of training for its employees, including the cost of training materials. This initiative, in which $1 billion has been invested, allows more than 1.6 million employees of the company in the United States to get a higher education without financial obligations, which contributes to career development and employee retention.
Reskilling: How Changing Course Opens New Horizons
A World Economic Forum report shows that around 50% of employees will need to reskill by 2025 to adapt to changes brought about by automation and new technologies. As hypothetical studies show, companies benefit significantly in terms of adaptability if they have specialists who can “switch” from one role to another. This practice increases the overall skill level of employees and helps protect specialists from burnout. In fact, burnout is one of the main reasons for the decline in business productivity. The high pace of change in the labor market, constant stress and pressure force employees to look for alternative ways to maintain their professional skills. According to statistics from Deloitte, among young professionals (for example, millennials), 84% experience burnout, and almost half have already changed jobs due to this reason. Reskilling can help with this challenge, because a radical change in the direction of work usually encourages people to explore their perspectives and invest more energy in their own development. How can we determine which specialists need to master a new position rather than improve their current skills? As a rule, reskilling is needed by specialists:
- in outdated or low-demand professions (where industry standards have changed or new technologies have been introduced),
- with current professional burnout (reskilling can be a chance to change the field while remaining in the company),
- who have demonstrated potential for new roles (for example, a sales manager who wants to master psychology to improve results).
Let’s look into a few effective reskilling strategies:
- Skills gap analysis: this strategy includes a detailed assessment of the current skills of employees and a comparison of them with the skills needed to successfully complete tasks in the future. The analysis is carried out using specialist assessment tools, questionnaires and interviews. It is used during large-scale changes in a company, such as digital transformation or updating a business model.
- Training programs: this method includes organized courses, trainings and seminars designed to provide employees with new skills. Programs can be conducted both online and offline. Used when there is a need to quickly train staff in new technologies or methods. Formal programs usually ensure a standardized level of knowledge among all participants.
- Mentoring and coaching: This strategy allows experienced employees to pass on their knowledge and skills to younger or less experienced employees. Mentoring helps in career development, confidence building, and rapid adaptation to new roles. It is used to deepen practical knowledge and develop leadership skills.
- Company-supported self-development: This strategy emphasizes self-discipline and stimulation of individual development. The strategy involves providing employees with access to educational resources, such as online courses, knowledge libraries, and training platforms. The company supports employees financially or provides training time.
- Partnerships with educational institutions: This strategy is often used in combination with the previous options. Companies collaborate with universities or vocational schools to develop specific courses or programs that meet their skill needs. Such partnerships are especially useful for gaining new knowledge in narrow specializations. It is used when in-depth knowledge or training is required for specific roles. The results include the development of a skilled workforce that can meet the challenges of the future of work and provide stability in a changing market.
Two great examples of effective reskilling tactics are the cases of AT&T and Amazon. AT&T, faced with a need for new tech talent, invested over $1 billion in employee training through its Future Ready initiative, which included online courses in partnership with universities. It helped thousands of workers master analytics and cybersecurity and move into new roles within the company.
The example of Amazon shows how the new reskilling strategy is starting to pay off. Amazon has invested $700 million in a program to reskill 100,000 employees by 2025. Through programs like Amazon Technical Academy, employees can move into programming roles, and through Machine Learning University and Career Choice, they gain skills for tech and analytics roles. The company has already seen a significant increase in employee satisfaction, but the full impact of this tactic will not be seen until 2025.
New tires for the career race: what tools can automate the processes of upskilling and reskilling
Let’s say your company has identified which specialists need upskilling and reskilling. The next step is to create an individual training plan for each employee. Each person learns differently: research shows that about 30-40% of people prefer a visual learning style (i.e. through visual stimuli), about 20-30% are audial learners who remember information best by hearing, and kinesthetic learners who prefer learning through actions and practical experience make up about 30-45% of the total.
Usually, upskilling and reskilling are managed by HR and L&D, and if the company has ambitious goals, the process covers all employees. This is a huge amount of work, and it is important to ensure that the specialists involved in reskilling orchestration do not drown in routine. Their primary task is to communicate with people, devoting time and attention to employees to help them identify areas of personal development. To leave this opportunity to the HR department, the technical processes of reskilling and upskilling (assessment of skills, drawing up a personal training plan, etc.) should be automated as much as possible. This is where solutions like SMART HCM & LMS come to the rescue. We suggest considering the step-by-step building of an individual training plan with the benefits of this system:
- Define goals – clearly outline what skills need to be developed, considering both the employee’s personal goals and the company’s needs. SMART HCM & LMS has a separate module for goal setting, which helps to define a clear development goal and achievable goals. And the development plan paves a step-by-step path to them, allowing you to improve the quality of knowledge required to achieve these goals. SMART HCM & LMS allows you to create individual talent development plans that meet specific roles and employee needs. This is not just a template, but a comprehensive tool that offers possible steps to reach a new level in the profession or move to another role. Employees can see what skills and competencies they will need and more clearly formulate their plan together with HR.
- Assess current competencies – understand the level of existing or future skills to build personnel training on their basis. Thanks to HR analytics and competency assessment tools, SMART HCM & LMS allows the company to monitor the progress of employees in real time. The solution helps specialists evaluate their skills and determine which of them need improvement. SMART HCM & LMS will tell you where there are gaps and offer relevant training modules or courses, removing the question of “where to start”.
- Choose training methods – these can be courses, seminars, trainings or mentoring. The choice of method depends on the specific needs and convenience of the employee (online or offline, individually or in a group). In SMART HCM & LMS, such modules as “E-learning” and “Gamification” allow the employee to view recommendations and select relevant courses that structure development according to a clear plan, making it exciting and productive.
- Set deadlines and a schedule – determine a realistic timeline that will provide enough time to master the skills without being overloaded. The unified database and user-friendly interface of the SMART HCM & LMS platform allow specialists to assess their development pace and improve their self-organization skills. In addition, each training course has its own progress bar, where you can assess how well the specialist meets the deadlines.
- Provide feedback and support – the system allows you to receive current data on the effectiveness of personnel training, which makes it easier for managers to monitor and adjust training plans. Integration with other HR systems allows you to link training results with key performance indicators, forming a holistic vision of personnel development. SMART HCM & LMS also provides mobile access and integration with chatbots, so employees can study from anywhere and receive instant support. This approach helps to shape a stable and accessible learning culture in the company, which is very important in the context of rapid market changes.
Successful companies, like true champions, do not wait for changes to emerge in front of them – they improve the skills of employees, ahead of market challenges. Upskilling and reskilling are long-term success strategies that ensure stability and competitive advantage for businesses at every turn. Just as in Formula 1, changing tires at a pit stop provides a quick breakthrough, investing in the knowledge and skills of specialists helps a company maneuver among competitors on the high-speed track of the competitive business arena. This is the formula for winning for businesses: developing not only products, but also those who create these products.
Got questions about retraining specialists? Submit a request – and our experts will help you implement winning tactics with the help of automation.
