Three high value hacks to upskill your workforce

Think back to a simpler time - February 2020. Even before the pandemic hit, upskilling and reskilling were a priority for many organisations and it’s easy to see why. Developing your teams’ skills to make them more agile and adaptable to shifting industry needs is invaluable and can has a massive impact on business performance. 

Fast forward to the present day and the need for upskilling and reskilling has not only remained, it’s greater than ever. A recent report by PwC shows that 39% of employees think it’s likely that their job will be obsolete within five years. It’s an alarming stat, but highlights that even your learners know they need to upskill.

So, where do you start? Here are three high value hacks to get you on the right track.

Identifying the skills gaps

A report by Mckinsey showed that 87% of executives surveyed currently experienced a skills gap or are anticipating one in the near future. As your organisation deals with the challenges of today and tomorrow, it needs to identify skill gaps that are aligned with your new needs. 

For example, it could be as simple as moving your customer service operations from phone to online, so employees will need to develop skills for chat, video, and your social channels.

Define your organisation’s future goals, catch up on upcoming work trends and determine the key skills needed for the future. Obviously, for a large organisation, documenting a list of employees’ skills can be overwhelming and time-consuming. 

The fastest and easiest way to develop a skills inventory is to get your employees to report their own. A learning platform like THRIVE Learning & Skills Platform can do all the hard work for you. As part of the platform induction, your learners are asked what their skills and interests are. You then have the data at your disposal to easily identify what you have and what you’re going to need in the future.

Closing the skills gap

PwC found 77% of employees are ready to learn new skills or completely retrain. So, how are you going to deliver this learning? There are two ways that are highly effective and they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

More microlearning

Your learners consume bite-sized content every day. Comprehensive courses covering multiple programs running for hours or even weeks aren’t what you or your learners want or need.

Microlearning courses enable your people to upskill within minutes, saving valuable time. Additionally, it feeds into learning in the flow of work, getting the answers you need instantly at the point you need them.

Vanquis Bank, has 1.7 million customers and over 1,800 employees, by adopting more microlearning in their training offering they managed to increase engagement with optional upskilling content by 460%.

Empower self-directed learning

Giving your employee’s autonomy over their development allows your people to learn at their own pace and in their own way. A continuous learning culture is all about making learning resources discoverable and accessible so your people can learn and apply knowledge in the moment. 

By making learning available to everyone, you might be surprised how many people benefit from your new strategy across teams and functions too.

It really works. Award-winning games developer, Sumo Digital adopted a self-directed learning culture and generated a 91% engagement rate. 

They created an environment to empower continuous growth where learning happens every day and sometimes without even knowing it. They have a dedicated amount of hours for personal development a year so it’s become a natural element of their employees’ roles.

How to measure success

Your organisation doesn’t need to know how many courses your learner’s have taken. They care about how L&D impacts business performance. 

It’s time to start paying attention to the outcomes that impact the business. For example, choose metrics that are particularly relevant to your business objectives and matter to stakeholders. These might include: employee engagement, time to competency, employee retention, sharing and collaboration, the percentage increase of productivity, and revenue growth.

How can THRIVE help upskill your workforce?

Here are a few of the features that already help employees around the world upskill at the point of need:

• Search & discover - Your learners can search for all the content they need. Be it specific content or general subjects such as “leadership” that allows them to explore, upskill and reskill themselves in certain areas.
• Personalisation - Content recommendations based on particular interests and skills provide a constant stream of relevant content from different teams around your business.
• User generated content (UGC) -THRIVE gives your subject matter experts the power to share knowledge across their organisation that all their colleagues can benefit from.  
• Accessibility - The mobile app is available anytime, anywhere on any device, giving the learners the tool to the information they require at the point of need.
• Outcomes (coming soon) - This brand new feature coming later this year will map skills to help your learners get from A to B, providing them with a clear view of the objective the learner is working towards. Find out more.

Ready to see THRIVE Learning & Skills Platform in action for yourself? Get yourself a free personalised demo and explore how a next-gen learning platform can transform learning in your organisation.