Strategies for Workforce Development:
In today's rapidly changing job market, organisations are increasingly focusing on reskilling and upskilling their employees to meet the demands of digital technology transformation. According to a report by the World Economic Forum, half of the current workforce will need to upskill in the next 3-5 years to adapt to the changing nature of jobs. Here are six practical strategies for reskilling and upskilling your workforce, drawn from general strategies for workforce development.
1. **Identify Skills Gaps**: The first step is to determine the skills that employees lack and are essential for the organisation’s future success. Launch personalised learning programs to address these gaps, ensuring that employees gain relevant skills.
2. **Develop a Skills Taxonomy**: Create a structured inventory of the skills most relevant to the company's needs. This helps in planning strategic skills acquisition and development.
3. **Implement Personalised Learning Programs**: Tailor learning programs to individual employees' needs and interests, ensuring they align with organisational goals. This can include on-the-job training and mentorship.
4. **Embrace AI Upskilling**: Invest in comprehensive AI training to equip employees with the skills needed to work effectively with AI tools. This includes measuring AI impact and reimagining workflows.
5. **Foster a Culture of Lifelong Learning**: Encourage continuous learning and adaptability by providing ongoing training opportunities. This helps employees stay relevant in a rapidly changing work environment.
6. **Retain Nontraditional Talent**: Accommodate employees who acquire skills through unconventional means, such as self-learning or boot camps. This approach can help retain diverse talent and foster innovation.
In addition to these strategies, organisations should present skilling as a combination of functional, digital, operational, soft skill, and leadership courses to help employees choose a mix of skills best suited for their work. Leaders should reimagine reskilling efforts to prepare workforces for future readiness.
As many employees in current roles are becoming obsolete due to automation and lack digital technology skills, it's crucial to redesign learning curriculum to make it a joyful and fun experience, similar to how children learn. Indeed, as an article in MIT SMR suggests, skills, not degrees, are becoming the new currency of the workforce.
By empowering employees with the right tools, resources, and support for their reskilling efforts, organisations can improve recruitment, retention, and adaptability, as emphasised in the MIT SMR article. Treating reskilling as a business investment, rather than optimising learning costs, can deliver significant results. Hiring talent from outside to meet this demand is scarce and competitive, leading many organisations to resort to reskilling their employees. Companies can expedite the creation of reskilling resources by outsourcing or buying available resources.
The tremendous demand for data scientists, engineers, and cyber experts due to the digital technology transformation underscores the importance of reskilling and upskilling efforts. Use data and AI tools to map out an employee's skill gap, personalise their learning experience, and measure outcomes over time to improve skilling efforts.
References: [1] The Learning & Development team should identify universal skills that can be sourced externally, but certain skills unique to the organisation need to be developed in-house. [2] There is a severe talent shortage, especially in the digital technology arena, and many companies face difficulties in recruiting fresh talent in this area. [3] Very few companies invest in upskilling their existing manpower, which can be major impediments towards an organisation's effort at digital transformation. [4] Organizations are reskilling their employees to build talent within, rather than acquiring it from outside. [5] The article "6 Strategies to Upskill Your Workforce" was published in HBR in 2022. [6] The World Economic Forum estimates that half of the current workforce will need to upskill in the next 3-5 years to adapt to the changing nature of jobs.
- To adapt to the digital technology transformation, organizations can offer remote work opportunities in finance and business, allowing employees to upskill in education-and-self-development programs while maintaining their existing roles.
- As the demand for data scientists, engineers, and cyber experts increases, education-and-self-development platforms can provide remote work opportunities for individuals seeking to acquire these skills, thus bridging the talent gap in organizations.
