Why Skill-Building Matters for the Post-Pandemic World

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the entire business world, forcing companies to make quick shifts in their operations and strategies. Of all the changes that followed, many affected the workforce: remote work redefined the way people do their jobs, the fast adoption of digital technologies pushed them to learn new abilities, and the expectations around work relationships were redefined, possibly for good.

It’s no surprise, then, to find out businesses across multiple industries are trying to meet the new demands that stem from those workforce-related changes. Well, at least that’s what a new McKinsey survey found out. According to the survey, business executives are very aware that they need to close skill gaps generated by the pandemic, and most of them see skill-building as the main way to do so.

It does make sense, doesn’t it? The health crisis struck hard and fast, so the only viable way moving forward was to quickly adapt to the new challenges. In that context, hiring new talent who could bring the necessary skills to meet those challenges was somewhat utopian. That’s not just because finding appropriate professionals is a tough and time-consuming process—it also takes time and resources for those new employees to acclimate to the company that hired them.

That’s why skill-building (mainly through upskilling and reskilling programs ) has taken center stage. Training your own employees on the new skills they need to better face today’s challenges can help you prepare your company quicker while also leveraging the corporate culture that’s already embodied in your team.?

The Switch to Softer Skills

According to that McKinsey survey, 69% of respondents say they are now doing more skill-building than they did in the pre-pandemic days. And that’s hardly a temporary strategy, as the survey shows that more than half of executives are planning to increase their spending on skill-building over the next year as well. This points toward an emerging trend that’s here to stay: investing in our teams to build solid yet flexible foundations for our businesses to thrive on.

How that process looks will naturally depend on who you are and what you do. However, there are a couple of coincidences across the board. First, basic digital skills have become a priority for all types of businesses. I’m sure you already connected the dots—with most processes getting digitized, you need professionals who know how to handle them.

And second, many companies are now focusing their reskilling efforts on softer skills such as leadership, critical thinking, and project management. The reason why that happens is that the pandemic disruptions have shown us all that people need more than just technical skills. Sure, you need people who know a lot about technology and have a lot of experience in industry-specific operations—but the post-pandemic world is full of challenges and opportunities that only those with certain soft skills can leverage.

Think about it. Constant changes in demand, new digitized processes, new cutting-edge technologies, highly dynamic markets, emerging actors in almost every sector, and new regulations are the standard in today’s business environment. Dealing with all that requires more than just technical knowledge—it requires agile people with curious minds, innovative teams with leadership skills, and highly trained professionals with developed interpersonal skills.

It’s not a coincidence that the McKinsey survey found that those are precisely the skills businesses are looking for right now. Without those abilities, it’s impossible to build flexible teams that can tackle the numerous (and sometimes unexpected) disruptions that await all of us in the post-pandemic world.

How to Excel at Skill-Building

We can all agree that skill-building is essential for the world to come. But now comes the hard part—how can we adopt skill-building programs that actually produce valuable and relevant results? As you might suspect, it all starts with a strategic plan to deploy those programs. Such a plan obviously needs to be informed with precise data about your skill gaps, your workforce needs, and your most pressing challenges. The analysis has to be as in-depth as possible and should contemplate gathering feedback from your employees to learn where they are standing.

Unfortunately, the plan in and of itself isn’t enough for successful skill-building. You can’t expect to jump right into action after identifying your gaps, mainly because you need to define what those actions will be—and that’s harder than you think! For instance, you need to define if you’re going to adopt an upskilling or a reskilling program (or both). You need to define how much you expect from those programs and where their limits are. You have to find the right balance between skill-building, hiring, and relocating employees who provide you with the right skills.

What’s more, you need to determine how your skill-building programs will take place. That implies defining the best format for your employees, prioritizing the skills to teach, designing the contents, and establishing the required infrastructure.?

And after all is defined, you can go ahead and institute the necessary actions. Does that mean your efforts end there? Of course not! You need to track your skill-building initiatives to find out improvement opportunities and measure their effectiveness and overall success. I’m pretty sure that there will be a lot of things to be adjusted after the first couple of encounters, but the only way to know for sure is to have a robust data-driven tracking system.?

Each of these stages has its own set of challenges and potential issues. A failed plan can compromise the entire process. A badly prioritized list of skills can hurt you more than it can help you. A lack of tracking (or a lack of data about the performance of the skill-building plans) can give you a false sense of security.?

The challenges are inherent to each individual process and it’s impossible to anticipate them all. But don’t stress over it—I know skill-building is a pressing issue right now, but you need to take the time to develop a sound plan. Otherwise, you’d be wasting your time and introducing new risks for your business.?

Talent Development Is the Way Forward

BairesDev’s slogan is that we’re a company powered by technology and driven by talent. When we decided on it, we were looking for a way to show what we thought should be the main focus of a forward-thinking company. And I think the team nailed it!?

When we worked on it, digital transformation was starting to gain traction, and companies were already used to obsessively look for the most skilled professionals out there. Today, both of those things are business imperatives. If a company is to succeed in the post-pandemic world, it needs 2 things. First, the power of technology that can boost processes and redefine entire workflows, fast. That’s what digital acceleration is all about .?

And then there’s the talent. I’ve been an advocate of the talent-first mentality for years, and it feels like the pandemic disruptions have finally pushed everyone to be on the same page about it. Companies can’t succeed without the most talented people working with them. Taking human-centric approaches is the way of the world now. On one hand, it allows you to better engage with your customers. On the other, it potentiates your employees and allows them to achieve their full potential.

I think that skill-building is precisely about that—accompanying your team with a human-centric approach that helps them grow and thrive. And that’s why it’s so important for the post-pandemic world. We’re entering a new era, where demands are highly dynamic and challenges come and go in the blink of an eye.?

You need a strong, critical, innovative, and emphatic team to meet those demands and overcome those challenges. And while you can definitely build a team by hiring different professionals, I think you should look inside your company first and realize the value you already have just waiting for something to boost it. And that something is definitely a skill-building strategy that can benefit everyone involved.