Technological advancements are keeping the cutting edge labour force honest. In addition, the impact of large layoffs following the pandemic is exacerbating the digital skills crisis across industries.
According to Ayman Izzat, CEO of Capgemini SE at the World Economic Forum’s 2022 meeting, meeting demand requires a “massive reskilling of the digital economy” and companies are not doing enough.
To stay competitive and relevant, companies around the world need to rapidly improve their workforce. Companies that are digitally mature, with employees who can adapt to new technologies, will be more agile and productive.
On the other hand, employees are also able to work with forward-thinking companies, offering digital skills training and career development. So it is imperative that you not only identify the skills required in-house but also see where there are gaps in your skills and knowledge supply.
Let’s look at six effective ways to build a company and workforce that can leverage digital technologies to drive growth and revenue.
-
Continuous professional development
More than just skills training, continuing professional development gives your workforce the opportunity to earn certifications throughout their careers.
But why focus on providing vocational qualifications for your workforce rather than more general training programmes?
Having staff complete widely recognized training programs ensures they have the skills they need in their field to beat your competition. Professional certification can transform your digital skills and offer a depth of learning that can’t be replicated by many other forms of learning.
Some people mistakenly think that because you’re offering a certification it must be generic and aimed at giving anyone a wide range of digital skills. But the benefits of continuous professional development are that you equip your staff with customized skills to meet your specific business needs.
For example, we helped create a specialized certification process for IBM’s sales team. Rather than offering a generic program, the certification process taught IBM’s workforce how to overcome specific challenges facing the company. As a result, IBM’s digital sales force saw a 7% increase in win rates and a 37% decrease in closed days.
-
Microlearning
Microlearning is more targeted than CPD. This includes training your employees on specific skills.
This will help you target key areas of concern or address skills gaps in your workforce, without investing huge resources or taking key staff time off duty.
It is also a flexible form of learning. You can have a collection of microlearning courses and which courses are important for a specific role in your company. For instance, marketers might require social media preparing so they can utilize and use the stage to connect with possibilities.
By letting employees know what’s important to their jobs, you can save time and increase productivity. Microlearning permits you to give workers admittance to preparing when they need it. As workers gain new liabilities, they can get to new modules.
-
Retraining
At the point when your organization puts resources into new technology or fundamentally impacts the manner in which it carries on with work, you might have to track down employees with new skills.
However, when you try to recruit them, you may find that there are not enough technically talented people out there. Gartner found that “technology skills are not generally implanted in IT, yet should be installed in organizational functions and businesses to make transformational progress.”
Perhaps you already have talented people in your organization, who haven’t been exposed to the training your company needs to fill the gap for new talent. Investing in retraining some of these employees will help you gain technical capability at a lower cost. All things considered, they are as of now integrated into your workplace culture and have significant knowledge from their ongoing position.
The benefits of retraining employees for positions in your organization are clear, from avoiding competition, attracting technical or digital talent, to maintaining loyalty to your organization. However, you can’t afford to focus only on your least technically talented employees.
-
Update Your Experts
Some employees in your workforce are already digitally savvy and proactively adopt new training and on-demand skills on their own. These employees are valuable, but research shows that if you don’t give them the opportunity to further improve their skills, you could lose them.
According to LinkedIn’s 2022 Workplace Learning Report, employees who feel that their skills are not being used properly in their current job are 10 times more likely to look for a new job than those who do feel that their skills are successfully used. This shows how important it is to value your staff so that you retain talent in your business.
The same report found that the top three focus areas for learning and development (L&D) programs in 2022 are leadership and development, upskilling or reskilling and digital upskilling or digital transformation. While you might be focusing on updating employees who are left behind, your HR or L&D team needs to try to support your most skilled staff too. This will help build loyalty and sharpen skills – all to your benefit.
-
Peer Support Programs
Your plans to improve your workforce should not exclude internal training opportunities. If your organization has digitally savvy employees, maximize their potential through a peer support program.
Not only can your employees transfer skills, but they are already familiar with your workplace and can make training highly relevant to your business.
Peer support programs are smart for another reason. A Capterra survey of HR leaders found that 49% of organizations are increasing their learning and development spending in 2022—up from 41% in 2021, a 20% increase YOY.
But if you’re facing budget pressures, that kind of increase may not be possible, so a peer support program may be right for you. Using your existing workforce to train your own people is less resource intensive than investing in external training.
Keeping your less experienced staff at the same level as your other staff can allow you to optimize a larger portion of your workforce for a lower overall cost.
-
Offer New Career Paths
Technological changes or advancements such as the addition of automation or artificial intelligence may dry up some career paths in your organization, but it should also open up new ones.
Investing in offering these opportunities early on can help you retain staff rather than let them go. After all, this is the age of hybrid and remote working so flexibility and career development should be possible as long as training is available in the skills needed by high-level employees.
Consider AT&T, which actively promotes and supports new career paths for employees. The organization’s preparation drives arrived at 210,000 representatives in 2021 and made a culture of nonstop mastering and abilities improvement. It offers personal training, mentoring and career development programs through AT&T University and is investing $158 million in direct employee training and professional development programs to provide 15 million hours of training by 2021.
But, we understand that not all businesses are at the stage of AT&T where they can provide courses to their workforce. So, why not start with something small?
So, want to know more about upskilling your workforce? Contact us at support@sunnydayconsulting.com or check our website at www.sunnydayconsulting.com!
