You can never guarantee employees are going to be the perfect fit for the job or the company when you select them, and the role you need them to do is probably going to change over time.
So how can you give them the best chance of succeeding in the short and long term? By investing in their ongoing development, or upskilling.
Upskilling has been shown to boost individual and team performance, and to increase employee confidence, motivation, and satisfaction. It also helps reduce turnover - a recent study by recruitment service, Randstad, found 38% of Kiwi workers would leave their job if there would be no learning and development opportunities to future-proof their careers, and 71% see training and development as an essential factor in their current or future job role.
In this post, we examine the importance of upskilling, what it involves, and practical tips to ensure you are taking the best care of your employees’ training and development.
What is upskilling?
Upskilling is the process of learning new skills or teaching employees additional, more advanced skills to improve performance, efficiency, or adapt to new job demands, e.g. as a job becomes more automated, new software is developed, or their responsibilities expand.
Employees can learn new skills and knowledge themselves or it can be done through their employer, e.g. through a formal training and development programme.
The difference between upskilling and reskilling
Upskilling aims to improve a person’s existing skills rather than learning completely new ones for a new role or to change fields (this is often called “reskilling” or “retraining”).
Common forms of upskilling include short training courses and workshops. There is also natural upskilling that occurs over time - e.g. when an employee gains experience, is given more responsibility or more difficult tasks - but it's typically slower and less precise than with a structured plan that deliberately targets and supports their learning needs.
By contrast, reskilling usually involves longer, more intensive training to teach new fundamental skills - e.g. gaining new qualifications - and is often used when a position is made redundant and an employee moves to a completely new one.
Why upskilling matters more than ever
Job demands typically change over time, in response to the development of new tools and technology, market shifts, or other factors within or outside the organisation.
The pace of that change has intensified recently - with the advance of digital technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and market disruptions - and this is only set to increase (the World Economic Forum predicts that in the next decade, approximately 1 billion jobs are likely to be transformed by technology).
Employees realise more than ever that continuing to build their capabilities and knowledge is essential in adapting to changes and ensuring their skills keep pace with demands. Upskilling also keeps them more engaged in their work by increasing confidence and fulfilment.
Key benefits of employee upskilling for employers
Every business needs the right people with the right skills doing the right tasks, and your most valuable workers are the ones that want to improve, to broaden their skills and become more capable.
Employees look for employers to provide upskilling opportunities, and if you work with them on training and development, you build a workforce that is used to learning and able to respond innovatively to change. This helps ensure your talented staff want to stay with you, the team stays productive and competitive, and you can provide continuity of your services to customers.
Also, upskilling your current team members is usually more cost-effective than recruiting and onboarding new ones, especially if the skills the business needs are in high demand.
Of course, you could argue that upskilling is the responsibility of employees, but with the pace of technological and market shifts, the business may struggle to adapt or seize new opportunities. Your workers could get bored, feel out of their depth or unsupported, which then affects their motivation and performance, and can lead them to look for other opportunities. They will take any knowledge of your products or services with them.
Our 8 tips for successfully upskilling employees:
1. Hire people who love to learn
Start with the right people - try to find individuals who have an appetite for learning, whether that’s formal training they have done or skills and experience they have picked up on the job.
These people will not only be better learners but will also adapt to changes and help the business find solutions to problems.
It can be easy for an employee to look good on their CV, so ask questions that will show you whether this person has a history of improving their skills, e.g. “Tell me about a time you didn’t know enough to do a task or a project. What did you do? What was the outcome?” Or: “Describe a situation where you deliberately tried to improve one of your skills. What was the context? What steps did you take?”.
2. Personalise development
Employees have different abilities, experience, career aspirations, and styles of learning, so you need to work with them to understand their strengths and areas to develop. From there you can create a personal development plan to build competencies that will help them succeed in the role and beyond.
Define learning goals using a framework such as SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound) and offer a range of upskilling options - e.g. on-the-job learning, formal education, shorter workshops, mentoring, and soft skills development - so employees can get the skills they need (and want) in the most effective way.
MyHR’s employee performance module makes it easy to determine learning objectives, build development plans and to deliver the right resources, with a library of skills, competencies, and activities to work from.
3. Be analytical about skill gaps and development
Knowing what skills each employee has enables you to build an accurate picture of the range of skills you have across the organisation and any gaps you may have.
Ideally, this is an ongoing process that flows not only into upskilling but to ensure you have the best organisational design.
We realise conducting regular skills assessments may be hard for smaller businesses with more demands on time and resources, so start by breaking it down into the top 3 pain points in your organisation (e.g. you’re spending money on contractors because your team lacks the necessary skills, or management is getting pulled into customer conversations because of complaints about poor service).
From there you can outline the skills that your team needs to solve those issues - they might be technical skills or softer ones such as conflict resolution or customer relations - and whether your staff possess these skills (this could be as simple as a 1-5 scale from “no capability” to “expert capability”).
Then decide on some achievable next steps to help your team develop the necessary skills - e.g. highly-capable employees coaching others, or finding a formal training course, business coach, or other resources (books, webinars) - and build them into employee development plans. Revisit your skills matrix in 3-6 months to track progress and make adjustments.
4. Make learning and development part of your culture
All the upskilling options in the world won’t mean much, if employees don’t know about them and aren’t encouraged to utilise them.
Learning and development should be a celebrated part of your organisation’s culture. It’s about creating an environment where employees are free to pick up and test new ways of working, to ask questions and learn from their mistakes, rather than hiding or fearing repercussions.
Again, time can be a constraint for busy businesses, but that doesn’t mean employee training and development should be set aside. Learning on-the-job (also known as "learning in the flow of work") is a great way for employees to learn and apply new skills, rather than trying to remember things later on.
Providing a range of learning options of varying lengths - e.g. lunchtime lectures, coaching sessions, longer workshops or courses - can also help people fit learning around their workload. If there are periods when operations are typically slower, these could be good opportunities for individuals or small groups to complete longer training sessions.
If you have employees with expert knowledge or vast experience, lean on that expertise and have them share it, e.g. by running workshops, training courses, or sharing written resources. Likewise, if you send an employee to a seminar or on a course, get them to make notes and create a training session for colleagues.
A company culture where everyone feels genuinely supported to find ways to improve and grow is more dynamic and engaging, not only for the talented employees you have, but also the ones you may need to hire.
5. Provide coaching and mentoring
Mentorship and coaching is a good way to connect employees with experienced professionals who can pass on expert knowledge and valuable “soft skills”, such as leadership and communication.
Mentors build confidence and judgement as well as practical capability, helping employees navigate their development and career.
Utilising a mix of both internal and external support is best. An in-house person (usually a mentor) will have a good read on internal politics and the nature of the challenges the business faces, whereas an external person (paid coach or informal/unpaid mentor) will have a more objective take on things, along with different experiences and perspectives to contribute.
6. Align development with performance
Personal development plans work best when they are part of a comprehensive performance review process that aligns improvement with achievement and tracks progress.
A good performance review system provides a broad view of an employee’s skill development and how successfully they apply them to their work. Conversely, if an employee is struggling, the performance review process should identify areas for improvement, so you can work with them on ways to achieve it.
At MyHR, we are all about the conversations that happen around performance reviews. Be sure to schedule regular check-ins with your employees rather than waiting to have formal conversations at the end of the review period. This not only builds rapport and loyalty, it means you can spot and address development needs as you go.
MyHR’s performance review module makes tracking competency and skill development easy. You can assign a tracker and rate progress (e.g. "below expectations / bang on average / way better than expected") and accurately collate results at the end of the review period so you can have a meaningful discussion about what’s going well and what skills an employee might need to acquire.
7. Lead by example
Business-owners and managers should prioritise their own upskilling, not only in learning new skills but by gaining insight into what might be ahead and what the organisation might need to do to stay competitive. We all know that technology is evolving at a fast pace in most industries, and leaders should be aware of its implications and ways to implement it.
You also need to understand the nature of your teams’ daily challenges and to identify the skills and experience that would benefit both the business and employees.
The flow-on effect is that you set an example of upskilling to employees, which feeds back into your culture of curiosity and improvement.
8. Use digital tools
Digital tools and e-learning make it easier to create personalised learning paths for employees and to provide access to targeted training and development resources when they want, at the pace they want.
Content can be delivered in a variety of engaging ways (e.g. videos, games or quizzes), which increases participation and significantly reduces barriers to training, such as the cost and time involved.
A powerful cloud-based platform that integrates with performance reviews and other employee data gives a clear overview of staff development and enables real-time collaboration between individuals, managers, and mentors.
