Research from the eLearning Industry found that 37% of people are concerned they do not possess skills needed for promotion within their company. As a result, businesses should place particular emphasis on upskilling employees as part of their development.
But what is upskilling and why is it so important? Upskilling is defined as “the process of learning new skills or teaching workers new skills” as part of their growth. Essentially, upskilling employees as part of a business’s strategy is their way of saying they are investing in the careers of their people.
With 74% of employees stating they feel their managers need upskilling or reskilling, it should be a focus for many businesses. In this blog, we identify what the process looks like and the benefits you can take advantage of by focusing on upskilling employees!
Increased productivity
One of the major benefits of upskilling employees is increased productivity, with 91% of companies stating it had a positive impact in boosting levels. Higher levels of productivity can lead to better quality of output, more motivated employees and improvements in efficiency. As a business, that’s great for you!
Reduced costs – both short and long-term
Despite recent budget cuts for many businesses, there is still a need to deliver projects – staying focused on remaining agile and innovative is more critical than ever. Upskilling employees can help with that by reducing costs.
Training existing people immediately cuts out the cost of recruiting a new employee, which can be costly – as mentioned in our blog on how to improve efficiency with eLearning.
Additionally, if you empower current employees to train and upskill your people, this saves training costs too. Instead of paying an external trainer to come in, use the tools already at your disposal – your people!
Doing this reduces in the short and long term, as you can then use newly trained employees to repeat the process in the future, a win win for your business!
Creates loyalty through feeling more valued
With 69% of HR executives reporting added pressure to prepare employees for future roles, there is a need to provide more development opportunities.
Upskilling employees and giving them the tools needed to perform better in their roles gives them confidence and makes them feel more valued, leading to increased loyalty. It’s important that your people feel like they are being supported with their development.
Research from LinkedIn found that 94% of employees said they would stay with a company that invested in them for longer – so it’s definitely worth upskilling employees to make them feel valued. Loyalty leads to success!
Move with the times
Research from Gartner found that over 30% of skills required three years previous would soon be obsolete. This suggests that businesses need to move with the times in order to remain competitive, upskilling employees allows you to do that.
If a particular role or sector is starting to demand new skills, businesses can equip key employees with the skills and encourage them to train colleagues. Sharing knowledge and skills across the business allows you to level up as a collective – that way, you can equip your employees with skills to perform effectively in the future.
Upskilling employees can offer flexibility
Finding time to allocate towards training is a factor contributing to failure of training programmes, which is not the case when upskilling. That’s because it can be worked around your schedule, especially when utilising eLearning or current employees for upskilling.
Training courses require a fairly big commitment in terms of time and resources – sometimes entire days – and it doesn’t offer much flexibility for managers. But if you have an hour spare, you could use this to start upskilling employees, as it can be done whenever it fits.
Research from Gartner found that 45% of managers do not feel confident in their ability to develop skills their employees need in the modern day. If this is the case, managers can look to utilise eLearning to deliver material instead – it’s totally flexible.
Learners can access training designed to upskill them in bitesize chunks, so managers have the flexibility to do this instead if they lack confidence. They could even access some eLearning themselves to build confidence upskilling employees in the future!
As upskilling employees is becoming more important by the day, it makes sense for your business to start implementing a programme. Having outlined some of its major benefits, we hope you now feel ready to start upskilling your people.
If you are looking for some support with upskilling, we can help. Email us directly at hello@olano.co.uk and we will be in touch for an informal chat on how we can help your business achieve success in 2023!
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