As businesses around the world attend to deal with a rapidly and continously changing digital landscape, upskilling employees is becoming increasingly important for business leaders to help their companies stay competitive. Consequently, the ability to future proof your business and rise to new demands through continuously monitoring, supporting and preparing your employees has become both an operational necessity - as well as a strategic priority for future proofing. When executed successfully, effective upskilling measures can be invaluable in addressing skills gaps and ensuring knowledge sharing capabilities across departments are constantly evolving for long-term business growth potential.
Find our more about why your business needs to focus on upskilling your employees to ensure you maintain a competitive advantage edge over competitors and adaptability to the future and changing digital and business landscape.
What is upskilling?
Upskilling is the term given to the process of an individual learning new skills or knowledge as part of their employment. It is the business process of promoting continuous learning and development of employees to expand on the opportunities and experience of the employee whilst also addressing skill gaps that exist within the workplace.
Why is upskilling so important?
Upskilling is important for both employers and employees alike. For companies it is a way to address skillset shortages without the need to hire new staff. But it also provides a variety of other positive values. By offering employees to opportunity to further their skills and education, and promoting career progression and advancement, employees are likely to have higher job satisfaction and more loyalty to company that they believe cares and invests in their career development.
Upskilling is also beneficial to overall business operations and functions. The greater knowledge and experience that employees have, the faster and more effectively they are able to undertake and complete tasks, leading to an increase in productivity. Companies who make upskilling their current employees a priority as part of their continuous improvement plan are often seen as industry leaders. By enhancing their reputation, businesses also gain an edge over their competitors and become more attractive to top talent.
In the constantly evolving business landscape and the continuous advancement of technology, the skills and employee roles that exist today may not exist in the future, and having a team that is adaptable to new trends and technology is crucial for future-proofing the business. Upskilling helps prepare your employees for the future, ensuring that your business practices and company remain sustainable for the future while ensuring your employees’ skills remain relevant and ready to meet the changes of the future.
Ultimately, upskilling helps to save your business time and money. Hiring new employees to fill skillset gaps and knowledge shortfalls is expensive and time-consuming for any business. The process of advertising, sifting through candidate applications and interviewing potential candidates can be a long and arduous task, added to the notice period a new employee may need to give their previous employer and the time taken to onboard new staff, this can take months to complete. By using existing team members, this process is eliminated entirely, saving the company both time and money. Additionally, by promoting internally rather than hiring externally the person is more likely to have a clear understanding of the company’s values, mission and culture which helps ensure that their decision-making processes are aligned with the company’s overall strategy.
Upskilling is an innovative approach for business to fill vacant positions and build missing skill sets within a company. Not only does it save time and money for companies, but it also allows employees to take on more senior roles or develop transferrable skills with education and training that is beneficial to their long-term career goals. Provided employers and companies take an ethical and transparent approach to making decisions regarding their promotion and recruitment processes, quiet hiring and upskilling is undoubtedly something worth considering when looking at ways to increase the skillset within your company or team without having to go through a lengthy recruitment and hiring process every time a new need arises within the company.
Chandler Macleod Consultants help businesses address, develop, and manage their employees effectively. We offer the highest quality in products and technology to help your business make insightful decisions and can help your business by managing the professional development of your team, career transition and change,and employee experience, culture and engagement to ensure your team is best supported during upskilling and changes within the business.
Contact the Chandler Macleod team for a confidential discussion about the needs of your business and how we can help to maximise the potential of your employees and your business.
