High staff skills are also important in bridging the skills gap due to fast advancing technology and online courses can be a great tool to assist in this.
The digitization of business processes, hampered by the Kovid-19 epidemic, has shown how technology adoption makes the company more resilient, disaster-prone and agile. In times of epidemic-induced lockdowns, making employees online efficient has become a strategy for many businesses to float and maintain growth. But the benefits of advanced staff – training existing staff to qualify for the necessary skills – are not limited to the epidemic stage. It is a long-term investment to increase employee retention and increase productivity.
What worked a decade ago does not work now but unfortunately, today’s education system is still focused on creating suitable workers for the Industrial Revolution. Therefore, in order to keep up with the changing market conditions, modern companies need to prove their workforce through upskilling. In LinkedIn’s 2021 Workplace Learning Report, 59 percent of research and learning professionals list upskilling as a top priority.
Here’s how upskilling helps a business:
Advanced staff helps keep them: When a company invests in improving its employees, they feel valued. Providing technology training to employees provides real value to employees. Furthermore, practice ensures the safety of their work.
Less expensive: Multiple studies have shown that improving staff and hiring newcomers is less expensive.
Save time: Advanced staff helps a business save a lot of time and energy. With multiple training courses available online, upskilling takes up a portion of that effort.
Better prepared: In many companies, a few key employees conduct important activities but when they leave unexpectedly, business activities are endangered. However, improving the staff helps a company prevent this situation by preparing qualified successors.
Increased productivity: Training employees to acquire new skills encourages a culture of learning, revives their dedication and increases productivity. Such workers apply new learning directly to their roles.
Competitive edge: If the employees have the right skills, then the company is better positioned for their position in the market. Also, enhancing the efficiency of employees helps a company to keep pace with the changing needs of its customers / clients.
Customer retention: Skilled employees are inspired with modern skills and, therefore, serve better. We know that happy employees lead to happy customers and satisfied customers.
Why choose an online upskilling program for employees?
- Online learning saves the hassle of going to a physical place and can be accessed from home or office.
- Employees gain control over the training schedule and pace.
- Employees can customize the online program by choosing the courses they need. Also, various platforms offer online training designed to match an organization’s goals in areas such as marketing, supply chain management, customer service and logistics, among others.
- It helps a company to stay competitive by closing skill gaps.
How to plan an upskilling program for employees
An organization can encourage employees to come up with a personal development plan that includes skills they want to improve or learn. Empowering employees to come up with their own plans is key to the success of the upskilling training program. Employees can identify new skills that resonate with them and acquire skills accordingly.
An important aspect to remember is to set achievable goals and measurable results. Without clear intentions in the eyes of the staff, the lengthy training process can be frustrating. Many organizations avoid upskilling programs to reduce costs. However, online upskilling programs are not expensive. Needless to say, the benefits of improving employees far outweigh the costs.
In the beginning, a company must evaluate the existing knowledge gaps of its employees and take proper time in setting realistic goals to improve them. The process will help you retain your best employees and increase your company’s growth and development potential.