Reskilling and Upskilling: The future of employees and companies

Often when I talk to my teenage daughter, I ask her about her plans for the future. Choosing a career is not an easy decision, since few people are really clear about what their true motivations are. However, it is a really important election, and the young people know it. They have the example of previous generations and are aware that they will dedicate many hours to that task to which they have been entrusted and the question is, will the work they dedicate themselves to help them be happy?

It seems that today’s employees, and even more so after COVID, are quite clear that the search for happiness also comes first in the workplace and that this search is closely related to the time they dedicate to working with enthusiasm, approaching therefore to the definition of professional. The professional performs a job with which he feels positively comfortable and, for this reason, he is interested in continuous improvement, which helps him to continue training, advancing and innovating in his profession.

Based on my experience and on surveys such as the one mentioned at the beginning of this article, both candidates and employees today value more companies in which they can advance professionally, as well as those that offer them training for it. In this sense, it seems that the candidates do not want to stagnate, neither in a specific position nor with obsolete knowledge, but rather they want continuous improvement. They look for companies that help them forge a career, they value organizations that have development plans because they are clear that they want to continue learning.

In addition, it must be taken into account that companies are immersed in a digital reality affected by constant changes, therefore, young people and not so young already know that the future is rapidly riding towards new work models, clearly defined by rapid technological advances. Challenges for those who are not prepared and for those who have to train.

RESKILLING AND UPSKILLING

With the constant threat of a changing world, the idea of ​​reskilling and upskilling seems like the only way to stay alive in this world of work. We bring you some data to ground these concepts. The Future of Jobs Report 2018, carried out by the Word Economic Forum, for its part, points out that during this year, 75 million current jobs could disappear and that 133 million new jobs will be created.

But do we know what is the difference between reskilling and upskilling? The first is the ability to gain new knowledge about something you don’t know. On the other hand, upskilling is expanding knowledge about a specific aspect. Depending on the profile of each employee, it is essential to promote one or the other.

The concepts of reskilling and upskilling are tools that companies have to motivate our employees. Giving them the facility that they can be trained within our corporation, is an added value to retain our talent.

On many occasions, we are afraid that the investment involved in training our employees will never bring benefits but, according to the World Economic Forum, the cost of technologically training an employee is 25% lower than the benefits it would generate. Training our talent, therefore, generates many benefits for the company, including retaining our employees, motivating them and economic benefits.

Therefore, what we can say is that reskilling and upskilling is a win-win, both the employee and the company win. The employee feeling more valued and motivated; and the company, with a more qualified staff that feels more comfortable in the organization.