Amid the Great Resignation fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, companies face even more pressure to retain their employees while struggling to keep business afloat. While upskilling was previously a short-term measure to survive and sustain company growth, it has become a vital investment to help employees advance their careers.
Employee engagement and retention improve when provided and encouraged to take advantage of upskilling chances for their personal or professional advancement.
Read on to discover the key strategies for building a successful upskilling program.
1. Empowering employees to take charge of their own career development
Most of the time, employees know how they want to grow within the company. They need the tools to facilitate such growth. They usually know what they are interested in learning more about and doing more of. Hence, empowering them to take charge of their career growth is what an upskilling program should be all about.
It would help if you considered holding meaningful one-on-one meetings with your employees at least once a week to enable this. During this time, your employees may talk about professional interests and goals and self-advocate to obtain managerial support for their professional endeavours. The HR department can then use the information gained from these meetings to help formulate appropriate upskilling programs that your workers need.
This way, employee self-advocacy is encouraged, and they are given a chance to discuss their aspirations and objectives and are empowered to select a training that interests them.
2. Be responsive and reciprocative to employees’ ideas on upskilling efforts
Often, employees find it easier to leave when they feel like no one listens to their ideas. If your employee told you what they wanted, and you did not respond, you cannot blame them for leaving their job. When you ask your employees for input on upskilling measures, it is necessary to show them that their ideas are being considered and used.
To make your organisation’s upskilling efforts successful, you should encourage employee involvement as much as possible. Do surveys or ask for your employees’ feedback, identify recurring themes, and use that data to determine when and how to provide the upskilling options that will help achieve operational and talent developmental goals.
Essentially, engendering individual goals with organisational learning and development strategy is an investment that can result in solid returns in the long run. By considering, responding to, and reciprocating your employees’ ideas, you can make turnover remain constantly low, dramatically increase employee engagement, and make your employees feel proud to work for your company.
3. Provide a clear road map and milestones for performance measurement
By providing upskilling opportunities, companies have the chance to establish a more balanced and multi-faceted workforce. However, more often than not, employees get dissatisfied by lengthy training processes without an end goal in sight. When your employees do not know how they are doing or when they cannot see immediate rewards for their training efforts, they can easily get discouraged and frustrated.
Hence, a crucial aspect of any upskilling program is the identification of clear paths and milestones for performance measurement. This approach provides employees with insight into the training process while also empowering them to play a role in facilitating their progress.
To make sure your company’s upskilling efforts are not made in vain, you should put a system in which your employees can assess their performance against organisational measures. By providing clear metrics for individual assessment, your employees can now have a framework to work. This can also give your company a solid framework for analysing the impact of upskilling programs and inspecting metrics for training and development, advancement, retention, and others.
Conclusion
Recent years have clearly shown that upskilling is now a vital tool for employee retention and development, organisational growth, and strategic positioning. As your company considers opportunities to upgrade your workers’ skills and productivity, empowerment, engagement, and planning are the crucial factors you should not overlook. By listening to your employees’ needs and wants, and then responding to them, you can effectively position your organisation for future success.
To ensure your upskilling efforts lead to growth and success, consider signing up your employees for our classes here at BridgingMinds. We offer a variety of practical courses that ensure professional development, such as project management training and IT security courses in Singapore. If you want to get your employees ready for the digitalised future, we suggest having them specifically signed up for our upcoming cybersecurity courses like CompTia Data+. With effective upskilling efforts, you can guarantee your organisation’s success in every aspect!
