As the marketplace continues to evolve, we as employees and employers must always stay ahead of the curve. Aside from returning back to do a formal degree that you may not have the time or money to do one can focus on micro courses or tailored training that can take anywhere from a few hours to a few months depending on the material to be gained.
In light of this we must continue to upskill, reskill or new skill ourselves.
Upskilling is improving on existing skills that an employee has. This allows them to deepen their abilities and impact in their area of expertise.
Reskilling is a new set of skills that prepare your team to take on a new role. It could be a vertical or horizontal move within the company.
Companies do this because the employee is valuable and they don’t want to lose out on their experience but need to train them to fit in with new systems and capabilities. An example of this would be an employee who previously worked on an assembly line in a factory but this role has now been replaced by robots, you would need to train that employee on how to manage the robots or other similar activity.
The demand for skilled talent continues to grow. Skills gap will also continue to widen as technological advancements cause disruption tho the way we work. Therefore as employees we need to continuously upgrade skills to improve our employability.
To the company or management the workplace is kept agile and flexible ready to adapt to any changes that may occur. Hardly any business can survive today without constantly reskilling and upskilling their work force.
This is where the value of an learning management system (LMS) comes in. Organizations need to continuously review new skills that need to be learned and tailor them to the needs of the organizations and employees.
In the long run organizations can build more strategic skilling programs to effectively and efficiently develop these abilities in the workforce. SysPharma will assist you to conduct a skills gap (Individual or departmental) and align it with organizational goals and develop an solution that’s tailored to your needs. Conducting a skills gap analysis will enable your organization to:
- Succession planning
- Future proofing for the marketplace
- Design individual career paths
- help determine the required training and the best method of delivery.
The plan should always deliver a valuable return on investment. By promoting continued learning and development a business can boost employee job satisfaction, remain competitive and improve its bottom line.
Therefore a tailored LMS solution with specific knowledge and skills will assist your organization to:
- retain top talent
- overcome skills gap
- boost soft skills
- avoid unnecessary cost
- encourage employee engagement
During this time of COVID where we are limiting our social interactions and these include training and seminars at work, we would indeed benefit from having an online system with which we can still get our skills and knowledge upgraded and keep up with changes.
The great thing about an LMS is that the organization can choose to have asynchronous (Self-paced) or synchronous (Instructor-led) learning or even a blend of both. This allows the employee to pursue these training on an individual time and the organization does not need to dedicate valuable human resources to a five day training all at the same time. That means all organizational functions can continue to run without any compromise.
In Kenya, IT systems are rapidly picking up as the economy adjusts to having employees working from home, or working part time from the office, children learning from home. Employers and employees alike have had to gain new skills in a short period of time. The marketplace has radically changed in the last eight months or so as we learn to live and work with the virus. Continuous and adaptable learning has kept companies and business ahead of this scourge and enabled them to continue working and continue building the economy.
The following are the best practices to follow when reskilling your teams:
- Evaluate e-learning pain points
- Identify skill and performance gaps
- Assess the corporate learner strengths
- Using online simulations
- Host skill centered activities
- Develop a reskilling mentorship programs
- Plan ahead
In summary look at the team you have and where you want to be in the next few years and build a path towards that. Nothing but blue skies ahead, Happy learning folks!
References:
2. https://www.cornerstoneondemand.com/rework/difference-between-reskilling-upskilling-new-skilling
By Dr Judith Getugi
Operations Head SysPharma
LinkedIN @Judith Getugi-Kerini
31st August 2020.