Training an employee should be an ongoing process. Yes, onboarding your employee and matching potential candidates to positions that best fit their experience and education levels are important, but reskilling and upskilling is a great way to keep your loyal employees performing at their best. Continuing education isn’t just for certain fields, it can be beneficial to everyone. Here are some of the top benefits of upskilling and reskilling your employees.
Upskilling & Reskilling: What Are They?
Before we talk about the benefits of upskilling and reskilling, let’s talk about what the difference is between the two.
Upskilling occurs when you teach your current employees new skills or abilities. Reskilling occurs when you have an employee refamiliarize themselves with job duties they are already responsible for – these may have changed over time, or the technology available could have shifted, among other reasons.
Increases Employee Confidence
Creating opportunities for employees to expand or improve their professional skillset is a great way to foster innovation, creativity, and confidence in your teams.
Helping them build that confidence inspires more engagement and productivity, which in turn makes them more confident – it’s a great positive cycle to be in.
You Don’t Have to Hire Someone Else
Focusing more on consistent upskilling and reskilling means you can keep your current employees longer.
Rather than firing an employee for not already having a certain skillset – or for not having the right training if their job description has shifted a lot or a little – and then taking the time to hire and orient a new employee, reskilling and upskilling are perfect ways to both assess a current employee’s strengths and skills while also augmenting them to fit changing business needs.
Your employees are an investment, and there’s no reason to scrap all that time and work you’ve put into making them a productive and vital part of your workforce if you can pivot.
You Don’t Have to Choose Between Your People or Your Technology
When new technology comes available, you want to implement it into your business processes. But when you do that, you take away certain tasks from your staff. While downsizing is sometimes a necessary part of business, reskilling and upskilling can allow you to keep more employees (which boosts morale) and also offer cutting-edge technology solutions that enhance your business offerings.
Weather Post-Pandemic Changes More Gracefully
In 2020, many businesses had to quickly shift their offerings and work processes to combat the emerging coronavirus pandemic. Now, over a year into this global crisis, businesses are now starting to think about what comes next. “The pandemic accelerated existing trends in remote work, e-commerce, and automation, with up to 25 percent more workers than previously estimated potentially needing to switch occupations,” says Valamis.
Reskilling and upskilling are perfect for weathering post-pandemic changes more gracefully. You can use the new tech and tools you’ve acquired during this difficult time and create a more innovative work environment for your staff, because they still need jobs after the pandemic, and the technology solutions that were put in place during the height of the pandemic are likely to stick around due to their efficiency and expanded capabilities.
If You’re Going to Upgrade Your Tech, You Should Upgrade Your People, Too!
Meet Me In The Cloud wants to help you merge new tech with employee excellence. We offer technology adoption, training, and managed services for all your collaboration tool needs.
Contact us today with any questions.
