Upskilling and Reskilling: A Strategic Response to Changing Skill Demands

Introduction

With a rapidly transforming job landscape and accelerated pace of tech automation and innovation, the HR team has placed a high premium on upskilling and reskilling to comprehend the essential needs of the workforce. It has become necessary to consistently learn new and additional information to keep up to date with the fast-paced economy and job market. Employers prefer hiring candidates with the adaptability and resilience to thrive in a continually evolving workplace environment.

Developments across industries and technological advancements have changed how we work within the workplace. This article will examine why upskilling and reskilling is so important and the benefits it provides for employees and employers.

What is Upskilling?

Upskilling is an approach to enhancing employees’ skills, enabling them to develop new skills within their current job that will help them achieve to the best of their ability. With the constant emergence of new technologies and the changing face of the workplace post-pandemic, upskilling has become imperative. New skills take precedence, and job requirements vary with technological evolution. As a result, there is an ongoing need to look after employees’ training and development needs.

Upskilling enables employees to bridge skill gaps through continuous professional development. Learning new skills is essential to stay up-to-date with emerging business trends, thus helping organizations stay competitive in the market. For example, a start-up founder might upskill a manager in data analysis for better logistics and inventory planning and data-driven decisions.

?Benefits of Upskilling

Upskilling motivates employees to become conscious of their learning and advance their careers. Some of the key benefits of upskilling are as follows:

• Progression within existing job role?– Employees are competent to have a higher-level skill set and can perform tasks efficiently at work with greater confidence.
• Gaining control over workload?- If an employee has upskilled on simple and faster ways to complete a task at work, resulting in reduced stress and more time to pursue other interests.
• Retain staff and boost motivation?- upskilling shows employees that the employer is concerned about their careers and futures. A boost in employee confidence can quickly spread throughout the team, leading every employee to feel more connected.
• Stay up to date with technological changes?- Employers can take advantage of various technological changes through online resources to reach a wider audience.
• Highly competitive work environment?- Upskilling encourages employees to improve their work ethics and motivates them to put maximum effort into the given tasks.

What is Reskilling?

Reskilling is an approach to acquiring new skills needed to perform a completely different role. It concentrates on the employee’s requirement to learn a completely new skill set. It equips employees with the required abilities to adapt to new functions and become more versatile. Therefore, organizations need to pivot quickly and reskill for new roles. They can retrain their existing employees to take on new roles, which will keep companies functioning well even during times of change.

Reskilling is not only about saving time and resources, it also ensures that the employees stay motivated, engaged, and eager to develop new skills and expertise that will help the whole organization.

Benefits of Reskilling

There are numerous benefits of reskilling a workforce, both for the employers and for the employees. Some of the key benefits of reskilling are as follows:

• Career advancement?- By acquiring new skills, individuals can take on more challenging and rewarding roles, leading to career growth and advancement.
• Improved employment?- Reskilling helps employees stay relevant in a constantly evolving job market, making them more competitive and attractive to employers.
• Personal growth -?Reskilling provides individuals with the opportunity to learn and grow, leading to increased confidence and a sense of fulfillment.
• Career flexibility?- Reskilling allows individuals to transition into new roles or industries, offering greater career flexibility and potential for job security.
• Keeping up with technology?- Technology is constantly changing, and reskilling helps individuals keep pace with these changes and remain proficient in their field.

This article brings you some tips on upskilling and reskilling to changing skill demands. Next week where I will be going over some more pointers on best practices and differences between upskilling and reskilling.

About Author:

Priyanka Madhala?is the Head of Talent Acquisition at?Chimera Technologies.?