The future has its own uncertainties and society is rapidly getting transformed with the updated economic ecosystem. Businesses are getting developed more efficiently with the assistance of technology. It is clear from the analytical point of view that with the onset of the internet, the world has been seeing better days, when it comes to growth, scalability and opportunities. On the other hand, inflation is rising and with the passing of days a professional has to have a keen eye on the market trends to match and learn the skills in demand. But what if you want to entirely change your industry and go for a job with different roles? Have you heard of ‘Reskilling’? Business Outreach Magazine will walk you through the idea behind the concept and its importance in today’s times.
In the past couple of years, the mindset of a working professional has vastly changed and people are trying to find jobs that are more flexible, lucrative and values the efforts an individual provides towards an industry. It can be also taken into account that people are walking towards jobs that might pay less than their previous one, but has the potential to offer a more inclusive workplace that should support them and treat them well. With the rising number of tech jobs and the onset of automation in several industries, the wheels of the world are moving on a whole new road, leaving behind a few backdated job roles. This has caused employees to get laid off from companies, as technology or automated systems have taken their place. Shall we say that someone is to blame?
Business Outreach Magazine thinks otherwise. You see, from the beginning of mankind innovation and advanced mechanisms have always been there. For example, starting from the discovery of fire from the friction or rocks. If fire would not have been discovered, today the entire energy sector would have been redundant. Similarly, if the invention of the telephone would not have occurred, smartphones would still be an urban myth. And we would have relied on word of mouth or other outdated forms of system to know the updated news about the world. If these examples sound too techy, think of the automobile industry.
Had we been traveling by foot or on a horse cart, the entire healthcare sector would be still in the stone age. We feel the reason evolution takes place is for the welfare of humanity. At first, we could not perceive the long term benefits. But it gradually leads us to the ultimate destination, which is to never settle and keep on improving. Reskilling for the future will make us nothing less than experts in creating a better society, where new jobs will be created and fresh data of employment will definitely emerge.
Reskilling is the answer to a professional, a team or a company who is ready to sculpt their abilities and craftsmanship to welcome the demands that bring the future closer to us. Be it any sector or technology, change is happening at an unprecedented pace. The World Economic Forum (WEF) is alarming the population of the world that reskilling should be consumed with all efforts to meet the expanding gaps of jobs in the current workforce. Times are imperatively saying these phases as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. There are about 1 billion jobs that will be connected with technology in the next ten years. Reports suggest that about 133 billion jobs will be created just by the year 2022 to tackle the surging market demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
On the other hand, the United Nations are calling this era “the decade of delivery”, where the change in economy and demography is calling for new skills from the workforces of today. It is important for the society to encourage equitable progress and share positive feedback on the professionals to excel in jobs in the upcoming times. There is a strategy waiting to be sanctioned by the responsible citizenry. That governments, educational institutions and businesses should collaborate to develop new skills to educate the people for the 1 billion jobs that are coming our way by the year 2030. This will allow the people to feel welcomed and nobody will be left behind.
Jobs are adapting to new needs from a professional and approximately forty two percent of the skills in a role will change by the year 2022 itself. Reskilling examples are easier to calculate if the industries are figured out, where the growth is the fastest. Sectors like Cloud Computing, Engineering, Healthcare, Marketing, Artificial Intelligence, Data Analysis, Green Economy jobs, Human Resources, Project Management are a few that require our careful attention. It is not that people should learn highly focused information heavy knowledge to thrive in these fields. But yes, dedication and interacting with the current technology will give them specialized training to interact with different sectors and co-exist to build the society of the future.
Creativity and collaboration covered with a dynamic attitude is required to succeed and industries like Human Resources, Education, Sales and Healthcare will be coming first in our minds. The emerging job roles are hugely understaffed and require our immediate attention. These at-risk positions in jobs are offering enough opportunities to be grasped by the current workforce. Almost 70 % of those professionals who are needed to entirely change the industry they are in, should seize the chance and build a better safety net in the public and private sector for securing a sustainable future.
Governments and businesses should come up with innovative policy and tactical solutions to offer employees the right guidance and pathways for updating their skills, making them an asset for the growing global economy. Resources and facts should be placed in front of them so that they can go through the information at their own pace while working a job and tailor themselves accordingly.
In order to improve social mobility, the meaning of reskilling should be clear and concise to the working professionals and the future of the entire job industry will be in good hands. Survey with several trajectories tells us that a 10% improvement in social mobility will account for almost 5% growth in the economy in the next 10 years. The full potential of the people can only be attained through supportive business practices, fresh metrics, new societal policy and creative delivery accelerators.
What is Reskilling?
Reskilling is the process where an individual or working professional learns a whole new skill in order to do an entirely different job.
Reskilling is a term that has come up in companies, governments and nonprofits, where the process can assist workers whose abilities are outdated, equip them with modern knowledge and expertise to apply to current job roles and secure their career. This process is also helping companies in meeting their requirements for talents to suit the needs of the changing market trends. If any individual or a worker considers reskilling, then it will help the person get closer to a better job with more growth, perks and benefits.
They can have the option to improve their current package in the company they are working with or go out in the market for a better team and organization. Job reskilling can have examples like a retail store employee retrained as a specialist in customer support, a warehouse associate can turn into a robot technician and accountants can change their roles to become data scientists.
Why is Reskilling so important today ?
When a business needs to adapt quickly to the latest market trends or an evolving economy, it is required to fill new roles. And with new roles, comes the emergence of new employees with the resume of the in-demand skill sets. But hiring a new employee is a taxing task and needs time and careful decisions from the recruitment team. If a company has set up a reskilling program in their own house, it will help the current employees look through it and go for the essential necessities to undergo the training. This is a win win for both the employers and the employee, where the demand for trending talents is met within the house.
But it is not just about securing the company’s budget and time. Reskilling will definitely attract new motivated candidates with fresh knowledge and data and trained to gather the expertise to prove themselves to be an asset for an organization. Reskilling is necessary in today’s time, where reports suggest that about 33% of the job postings from the year 2017 are no longer important in the current society. Organizations that have adapted quickly to this changing phase have built a solid ground for employees to be trained for new job positions. These employees are already accustomed with the culture and work ethics of the company which will give them an ease to carry out the necessary steps to secure their future.
The onboarding process should not have to be extensive for hiring these employees and efficiency can be maintained throughout the journey. If a firm does not address these gaps in the workforce, they might face severe economic challenges which will make them lose their positions in the market or maybe a total shutdown. On the other hand, efforts in reskilling will bring forms of dividend to the employees who want to keep themselves sustained in the market throughout their career.
Benefits of Reskilling
There are several benefits of ‘Reskilling’ for both the employer and the employee.
- The cost of hiring and training of employees gets reduced– If the skills required to meet the market demands are met within the pre-existing employees of the company, then a lot of time and money is saved in the process. Talent management that is effective and efficient will be highly correlated with developing skills continuously. The culture that promotes learning and sharing that knowledge will lead to diversity and growth that are important for any company to scale.
- Top employees get retained within the company– A company grows by creating a trustworthy team. This team consists of employees who have dedicated their time and efforts for helping the company gain more revenue and create a respected status in the market. Reskilling can help these employees to grow from a professional and personal standpoint before the mindset takes a different turn. These steps keep them invested in themselves and involve engagement in the workforce.
- The employment remains stable– By creating a framework of reskilling, an individual gets conscious about the job roles of the current time and how any industry can evolve in the future. This clear data about the pathways of a job will reduce the fear within professionals that they will be replaced by the age of automation.
- New talents are discovered in the process– The pathway of reskilling is not static and shares its portion of adventures along the way. It is the employee that builds the necessary skills required to harness their full potential and keep their career running. A business has several departments and the reskilling process will help the employees explore every boundary. As a result, certain gaps will come up and the employer can fill in those gaps with new recruits from the market.
- A versatile team of employees are created– The opportunity arises for internal employees to add new skills into their profiles and this enhances in-house mobility. The learning offers them to embrace soft skills like emotional support, mental health assistance, peer coordination, strategic communication abilities and many more. Resilience is gained with the professionals who are cross-trained with numerous skills and can work in a varied spectrum.
Reskilling Examples of Building An Effective Program
A company needs to identify the reason why a reskilling program is necessary to sustain their business for the future. There are new talents with the skills and wit of the modern era waiting to be employed by a company where they will be valued and appreciated for their efforts and innovative ideas. An organization needs to figure out the long term and short term requirements and look for hiring talents based on that. A picture of the changes essential for the company should be chalked down, so that the future of the sector can be secured by bringing in these fresh talents.
Talents required for a specific goal should be pinpointed and this depends on the business. This can start by noting a business strategy and the understanding where the company should be headed for. Reskilling companies deciding to update their employee database with fresh candidates or training existing employees should modify the job roles and pathways required for a promising business goal. If the roles are understood, then the skills required for these positions will become transparent. Coordinating with operational leaders will help organizations realize the gaps in the workforce and the needs of the future.
In a reskilling program, goal setting is crucial along with setting up a perspective of success metrics. After these steps are taken, identifying qualified candidates for the program should be worked on by collaborating with the learning and skills building team. The team will have enough clarity while developing the program and the company will gain positive feedback along the way. Failure is a part of every journey and it should be embraced wholeheartedly. It is from these failures that creates success and purpose. Failure will provide the program with the necessary data and quick modifications will bring values to the company. When the program will not witness any roadblocks and several trial and errors, it should be promoted on a larger scale for maximum results.
Reskilling can take a subjective amount of time to complete the process. The transformation of the role along with the adaptability and resilience of the employee to learn the skills goes hand in hand. This process means that an employee is ready to learn new techniques and strategies to work on an entirely new job. So time should be given for an effective consumption of the relevant methods and knowledge. A motto of reskilling is that learning shall never stop. So the ultimate deadline to any reskilling program should not be bound by time. When employees are accepting the program in order to architect their skills, a long term productivity is developed within the company.
This allows the organization to create a culture of exclusivity and equality, where everyone is working towards building the scalability of the company and themselves. The continuous learning process brings engagement and adapts strategic business structure. Reskilling synonyms are rare, since the method itself is one of a kind. It is a character building process that grooms an individual with the right guidance and effective professional background. Human capital has a future that will change rapidly and we should be ready for it. With the help of performance management resources and software, the progress of employees will be made more efficient for building a better tomorrow.
Backdrop of Reskilling
The immediate action to meet current market demands might sound overwhelming. But companies should make every effort to avoid layoffs as much as possible. This is evident when the old outdated roles are no longer needed in the market, professionals with those skills will find themselves in a tough and challenging spot. There is a huge severance cost that should be taken into account when employees are being let go for not meeting the demands.
As a result, the morale of this entire workforce gets severely affected. They are perfectly able and willing to take on the next challenge. But the lack of reskilling or starting the learning process late will create a hole in the workforce for a certain time. This will harm the economy and GDP will drop significantly in a span of a few years. Rehiring new employees is more time consuming and costly than retraining the existing company employees for new roles.
Reskilling for digital transformation or any other tech based jobs or other emerging industries will also help in reducing the turnover of the employees. Reports suggest that about 42% of the employees who are taking part in the reskilling program are likely to stay in the company for a longer period of time since they are familiar with the company culture and workplace and have developed a connection with their peers and managers.
There is data that suggest that about 82% of the employees in a company realize that reskilling is required to sustain their future. And a seamless hiring process in a company will attract fresh talents who will bring in more values and latest information about the global economy with them. For an employee, reskilling will bring a sense of security in them as they are updated with the current market and to go unemployed is highly unlikely. Professionals will learn adaptation skills that cater to a changing work environment that is influenced by artificial intelligence and digitization.
It is simply impossible for a company to reskill the entire workforce. It is easier to consider the skills required to meet the demands of the company rather than the number of employees available in the market to do the jobs. The feasible way to consume success is to prioritize the roles needed in the specific departments and then start the reskilling training and hiring process. If the funds are directed towards the sectors that require prompt attention, positive results will come faster and the strategy will be more refined. The employees expected by the company to onboard in a reskilling program should have some sort of transferable skills and they must be aligned with some correlative facts about the new job roles.
The employee database with their specific strengths and weaknesses will help the company to pick candidates for the program and the transition will be much smoother. Sometimes all these steps and processes are a lot to take for an employee. A continuous support from the company ensuring some form of reliability will inspire the employee to strive for excellence. A working professional in the daily hustle should be clear of the fact that a reskilling program will deliver a stable and long term job in the present company. Incentivizing the program will be an added bonus and it will surely attract more candidates for the program. If a milestone for an achievement badge is strategized along with promotions and bonus packages, employees will have a sense of relief towards the validation of the reskilling program. Reducing the workload for the employees under the reskilling program will make them concentrate further on building the in-demand skills which will come back to the company as a bank of assets.
The job trends in the modern times require employees who are diverse and adaptable. A company should provide cross platform job roles to employees, where they work in a different department and recognize a skill they need to learn. This will also help them build a vast network which they can apply on themselves to improve their portfolio. The managers assigned to train these individuals will have to be strict and supportive at the same time. A little bit of a pat on the back and some token of appreciation amplifies the positive vibes in an employee and they will try their level best to emit values for their company.
An employee looking to participate in a reskilling program should ask some questions to oneself. Do the skills match the industry you are in? Will these skills set a clear list of goals for the long term career prospects? Why are these skills needed to enhance my productivity? Are these skills going to last me my career and sustain my future? It is important for a person to connect with individuals who match the roles they are seeking. A stellar network with meaningful connections has untapped potential when it comes to providing more promising positions in the same company or in a different one.
Asking questions and being curious will allow a professional to share his interest towards a craft and people who value growth will interact and help. Nowadays, companies offer a range of training programs for retaining their existing employees. This creates opportunities in working in a different department and experiencing something else to bring diversity in a career. Oftentimes, mentors play a huge role in these programs since they are the face of the future that will allow a working professional to go though the A to Z of a reskilling initiative.
When an employee is looking to take over a new position, a certificate of achievement from a reskilling program will bring forward transferable skills in the resume. This will create an awareness among the employers who are seeking talents that are always in the process of learning and adapting to the changing times. Critical thinking and experience will make the employee stand out from other candidates and the employee will always find exciting opportunities through the professional phase of one’s life.
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