Workforce Upskilling: How to Train and Retain Your Best - And Most Skilled - Employees

Finding and keeping workers is the topic of the moment. As an employer, how can you help ensure that workers stay with your organization? What steps can you take to increase job satisfaction? And how do you do all of this just as AI is disrupting work as we know it? Workforce upskilling can help.

Since the pandemic, employees have looked for work that’s better, all the way around: well-paid, mentally stimulating, upwardly mobile, and emotionally satisfying. According to The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, something called The Great Reshuffle followed the high quit rates of The Great Resignation and is now driving employee demand for more from their workplaces. The reshuffle is a widespread worker transition “to other jobs in search of an improved work-life balance and flexibility, increased compensation, or a strong company culture.” Workforce upskilling is one way to provide your best employees the work experience they’re looking for and retain their skills for your organization.

The Importance Of Intention

Ben Robinson, one of our most experienced management consultants, says one thing comes up over and over again with clients: the need to significantly boost their retention efforts. What they’re doing just isn’t enough.?

“We’re heading into a period when five or ten percent tweaks aren’t enough,” he says. “No one knows how AI is going to pan out. No one knows [exactly what the future landscape will look like]. We need to do more than send out an occasional article to the team or pay for someone to attend another accounting conference. We need to be able to take on deeper issues.”

In his opinion, employers don’t have a choice. It’s difficult to hire people in the first place and difficult to replace workers if they leave. At the same time, an underutilization of continuing education dollars is common in state government; often, funds aren’t used until the very last minute. This is indicative of a weak program, especially in a time of transition, like this one.?

Instead of passively offering skills training, employers need to be proactive by setting up regular training modules that can shepherd workers along a satisfying career path. One of the most positive trends he’s seen is the rollout of bite-sized skills training modules in, say, six-month increments. This makes training feel more doable for employees and makes it simpler for employers to pivot as the landscape changes.?

What Kinds Of Upskilling Should You Support?

We believe the most valuable kind of workforce upskilling focuses on soft skills particularly those in leadership.?

Soft Skills

Often, upskilling focuses on increasing technical abilities. This is important, of course. It’s imperative to address the widening skills gap. According to Everything DiSC, “Whether it is a less engaged workforce or lost productivity, the detrimental effects of skills gaps can add up quickly.”

But even they reported in a recent publication that “Upskilling and reskilling your people, while looking beyond traditional qualifications like education or previous titles, is an effective way to start leveraging the talent that already exists in your organization by equipping them with the tools necessary to help them succeed.”

We agree. Soft skills, such as the ability to absorb feedback, listen actively, and solve problems creatively, are going to play a key role in organizational success. Disruptive times are on the horizon. AI is changing work rapidly and experts suggest that workers of the future will be working a decade (or even two!) longer than workers of today. The ability of your workforce to thrive in our future work landscape may largely depend on their flexibility and people skills, not just their ability to utilize the systems we have in place right now.?

Want to be a leader the future needs? Continually help employees improve their soft skills.

Focus on Leadership Upskilling

The most important set of soft skills are those that teach people how to lead. Though it’s valuable for your workforce to learn a wide variety of hard and soft skills to help them perform more successfully in their current roles, it’s even more valuable — for them and for you — to prepare them to take on new leadership roles.

Remember that just because someone is your top salesperson, Excel pro, or data analyst, it doesn’t mean they’re ready to lead people. Leadership requires an entirely new set of skills that employees can layer on top of their current expertise. If you promote them into leadership because you think they deserve it without giving them the training they need to succeed, you’ll end up with dissatisfied employees and trouble retaining a robust team.

“Try to create a workforce that can solve your future problems,” says FirstRule consultant, Jairus Rice. “What will you need to solve in the next three years? What will your competition look like? What economic swings might require us to do more with less? Are there any new regulations on the horizon that you can try to address now? How can you brace for the impacts climate change will have on your industry? Policies? Fewer resources?”

How To Upskill Without Losing Your Employees

When you’re thinking about how to not only train but retain skilled employees, make sure your program helps cement a career path in your organization for your employees.?

Workers shouldn’t have to guess what their future at the organization looks like. Every skill they learn should be something they can put into action immediately or in the near future — at your organization. It should go without saying that you shouldn’t sink resources into training that employees will only leverage to go elsewhere. You’ll drastically reduce that possibility if it’s clear from the start how they will use and hone the skills they learn now.

And be sure training is a two-way street. As your employee learns new skills, they add more value to your organization. Help ensure that they continue to want to use their value for you by compensating them well, financially and culturally.?

The Importance Of A Supportive Work Culture

A good training program helps ensure that the work remains interesting and demonstrates that your organizational leaders care about employees as people. Your upskilling program, whether you know it or not, is part of your work culture — emphasis on part. If people don’t feel supported at work, even the most intentional training program will fall flat. You need buy-in. And buy-in happens when people are happy to work for you.

This is particularly true for younger generations. In general, if a younger worker doesn’t feel like your organization is a good place to work, they won’t stay.?

When you acknowledge that job satisfaction has multiple facets, including salary, a clear career path, and attention to work-life balance issues, employees will feel like staying.