New Workforce Skilling for Innovation, Growth, and to Future Proof

Even before the start of the global pandemic, upskilling, reskilling, and future proof had become vital phrases in an HR lexicon. As the months passed, work environments and work culture started changing drastically. The impact on labor amplified, to make upskilling and reskilling the norm. Employees who could be trained and trusted to deliver results were sought.

Before we explore this further, let us clearly differentiate the concepts of upskilling and reskilling, as the two phrases are often used interchangeably. Reskilling is teaching your employees the skills for a new occupation, considering their aptitude and prowess. However, upskilling is to teach your employees advanced skills for the current occupation, for enhanced performance in the same job or task.

Now that we have familiarized ourselves, let us look at why this has become a topic of great interest to the C-suite.

• According to the World Economic Forum, 54% of all employees will require significant upskilling by the end of 2022.

Automation is not the only reason. With billions of businesses and thousands of competitors for each product, companies need to make their value proposition brightest. And to achieve this, a thriving workforce that rises to the challenge is not only essential but critical to the success and growth of businesses. In short, to-skill is to future proof your organization.

This brings us to the next statistic,

• According to Gartner, 70% of HR leaders say their TOP priority now in 2021 is workforce skilling or skill development.

However,

• As per another study, only a mere 36% of the best organizations are prepared to build skills for the future.

While the issue of the unknown is deeply disturbing, companies are required to think fast, act faster and deliver results even quicker, if they want to stand a chance to future proof and secure the workforce and business.

It is evident that internal talent development is more lucrative than hiring and training new employees. We are two years into the pandemic, but we continue to see worrying trends and statistics about organizations unable to find remarkable success with their approach to upskilling and reskilling.

Why are organizations failing in their approach to skilling? What are the elements being overlooked? How can they be addressed? What role does technology play in meeting skilling goals? This post will further explore such burning issues.

A. A fabulous content strategy in silo, is a lost cause

While creating great content is commendable, this is not enough to fetch you the results that you aspire for. All this great content that you have invested to create needs to be made available for easy access and usage. The modern learner is conditioned to work on Google and YouTube for a reason. It gives the learner a world view of the topic at one glance. The needs for workplace learning are no different.
Organizations need to invest as much, to package and present training to suit the needs and requirements of the modern learner. Make content compelling and accessible to make finding and learning information a lucrative career opportunity for your learners, to future proof the organization.
Did you know, 60% of the best organizations reveal that not having the technology ecosystem in place is the top challenge to develop and deliver personalized learning at scale?

B. Absence of training infrastructure to support objectives

The fundamental reason for training is to ensure specific objectives are achieved. Objectives or outcomes that will assist the employee to perform better. In this aspect, do you have a training infrastructure in place to achieve the identified objectives? Does your strategy include a framework for identifying skills and competencies, and then deploying training that meets learners’ needs to achieve superior outcomes?
Training infrastructure has become a prerequisite for upskilling and reskilling. Further, the training infrastructure ensures the scalability of training to suit dynamic needs. The pandemic has shed light on the inability to scale instantly to skill an increased number of learners.

C. Debunking the one-size-fits-all approach to training and learning

The one-size-fits-all approach to training is flawed. Learner needs are different, their capabilities are unique, and the objectives to achieve for each learner are different. When there are so many variables how can all of them be trained in the same manner? Adding to the variables are their duties, tasks, and responsibilities.

What type of learner is the employee – visual, auditory, or kinesthetic? What learning format resonates the most? Do you understand such individual needs and then proceed to curate a personalized learning experience to score high on engagement, retention and enable better application? As consumers we seek personalized experiences all the time; why must training be any different?
Did you know, 82% of companies are currently improving their approach to personalized learning?

D. Content discoverability

Let us revisit the example of why Google and YouTube enjoy success. It makes it easy to find new and relevant content instantaneously. To establish a learning culture, and upskill and reskill effectively to future proof, organizations must invest in content discoverability. Tagging learning content or training resources appropriately, combined with powerful search and optimization can go a long way. Further, when you deliver this through learning paths created for the user, training is simplified, and the right content is made easily accessible to the learner.

E. Content integration

Organizations will benefit by bringing a host of resources on the same topic in one place. By expecting the learners to fetch the information that is scattered all over, you are contributing to difficulty and distraction in learning. The productivity loss is everyone’s guess. Additionally, there is simply no point in investing heavily in content development, only for it to be lost in a maze.
Did you know that employees spend up to 40% of their time in research; scouting for information on something that they do not understand?

F. Content engagement strategy

In 2021, there are still organizations that are yet to take the plunge. Training today has evolved manifold and the training industry is a force to reckon with. Training content creators use scientifically proven strategies, bank on trends, deploy innovative tools and resources that can fetch greater results for your training to turbo-charge learner outcomes. There are practices to implement to ensure that learners are engaged in their own learning.
Further, are you providing opportunities for your learner to sustain that engagement? A safe practice environment to apply learning, fun and motivational assessment modules, or even a gamified leaderboard concept by collaborating with peers; will ensure that learners remain engaged with the learning, retain better and apply better.
The in-house L&D team may not always be cut out to deliver all the above results coordinated with industry best practices, and hence is best left to the experts.

How can organizations effectively address each of these burning issues to future proof the workforce and business?

The Learning Experience Platform has proven over time to fetch high results towards success and sustainability. How is the LXP an ally? We break down the possibilities in this section.

• A learning experience platform is designed to be the organization’s one-stop-shop for all things related to knowledge and skills – finding information, developing skills, acquiring skills, enhancing skills, and career advancement. It makes learning exciting with compelling content that has been packaged for easy accessibility and presents a great viewing and learning experience.

• The LXP curates experience that sticks, by recommending and delivering training that aligns with skill sets. Guide the employee towards opportunities for improvement, provide them with access to a curated set of training courses and material, orchestrate capabilities, and propel performances.
• The training platform acts as an aggregator of relevant content, making it easy for learners to find interesting training content. Based on learner needs and preferences, content is positioned front and center. Further, with sound labeling tactics, powerful search, clear navigation, and optimization, content discovery is easy to make learning a pleasant experience. Engage and motivate learners.
• Through the deployment of virtual labs and simulation platforms, provide a safe and secure avenue for learners to practice their learning. Gamify assessments, foster collaboration among peers. Build confidence, promote innovation to upskill and reskill to prepare for the future.
• With multiformat content capabilities, engage learners in a format that they find most comfortable. Help them understand and retain better. Microlearning, gamification, simulations, and many more such opportunities on the LXP offer enhanced engagement and personalization.

For additional reading, we recommend this case study here. Discover how an AI enterprise provided role-based training to ace skilling goals among other significant gains, including savings of USD 2.9 million.

The future of the workforce need not be complex. An effective strategy to competently upskill and reskill is an assured way to future proof the organization.

Watch this video here about Fractal LXP.

Would you like to know more about skilling the workforce? Write to [email protected]

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