Effective technological transformation is the principal tool to help your organization to prepare for and respond to cultural change. However, digital innovation cannot occur without first providing employees with the skills necessary to instigate that change.
Remote work, changing business priorities and an uncertain economic future are realities being faced by staff across the globe and an active digital innovation leader will prepare their employees with the relevant skills necessary to combat and deal with these issues. Consequently, Upskilling is the answer to this issue.
According to TalentLMS, 80% of employees say that upskilling and reskilling training boosts their confidence, whilst 91% of companies argued that it had boosted productivity at work. In an age defined by uncertainty, it makes sense to prioritize both the confidence and productivity of your employees, this is why workforce transformation is vital.
How Does Upskilling Your Employees Help to Institute Workforce Transformation?
It is unlikely that the training experience will ever return to the pre-pandemic norm. For the most part however, it’s a transition that we’ve been able to navigate successfully, even with remote work . For example, McKinsey revealed that 80% of workers enjoy their work-from-home setup and almost 70% have seen equal or greater levels of productivity. In line with this, HR leaders must prepare themselves for the future via remote delivery.
However, whilst many employees are currently comfortable working from home, this may not always be the case. With that in mind, executives must begin to consider the solutions that will help them to train and upskill staff remotely. Even before the current crisis, changing technologies and sentiment were disrupting jobs and the skills that employees needed to do them. It’s an issue that’s magnified when we consider a remote workforce.
In a recent survey, 87% of executives said they were experiencing skill gaps in the workforce or expected them within a few years and less than half had a clear sense of how to address this issue. To meet the challenge, executives have had to forge a talent strategy that covered the key needs of their employees. This includes their critical digital & technical capabilities, social & emotional skills, and mental adaptability & resilience – via an effective upskilling program any organization can realize these needs.
When building such a program, executives should consider the following:
- Identify the Skills You Depend on – Executives must identify the critical skills and number of employees necessary to deliver on their transformation initiatives
- Build the Skills – Once you’ve identified the necessary skills, you can build a skill set that will help employees in key parts of your business to respond well to changes.
- Launch tailored learning journeys to close the skill gaps – Strategic workforce planning is vital here and digital tools which re-create the best of in-person learning will be essential.
- Start immediately, test and iterate – Similar to streamlining your operations, the key here is to make implementations, fail fast & build on them until you’re happy with your training program
- Upskill as if you were a small organization – Companies with fewer staff are better at upskilling as they are more agile in approach, you should try to mirror this regardless of organizational size
- Protect learning budgets – Companies that cut their learning budgets now are only delaying their progress, not netting a saving. The current crisis demands a significant skill shift and just because you’re seeing results doesn’t mean the job is done.
Be ready to defend your position against board pressure, as whilst you are equipping your organization to react quickly, the transition to that capability may not be so quick itself. PwC’s findings show that more than a third of CEOs who are advanced in delivering their programs were very confident about 12-month growth trajectories, and 41% have seen ‘very effective’ changes in creating a stronger corporate culture and greater employee engagement. With these improvements in your pipeline, you will be able to incite and safeguard large-scale upskilling programs and workforce transformation.
Read our more extensive HR Spotlight report here: “12 CHROs on the HR Trends Driving Change in 2021 “.
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