Whatever your North Star is as a leader, it should include a commitment to helping your teams excel by supporting continued learning and upskilling. If you’re not familiar with the term North Star when it comes to leadership, it’s simply having a mission statement for your leadership goals and style. It can be as broad or as narrow as you like, but it has to convey your character, passions and values. As a leader, committing to help your employees and team members upskill, reskill and seek continued learning opportunities says that you are committed to the success of not only the organization, but in the development of every individual under your influence. It’s important to know and understand why developing or providing upskilling opportunities and how it can impact your business.
No Matter the Industry, Skills are In-Demand
We can’t say it enough: the workforce is evolving. With that evolution comes new technologies that require new skills and new ways to approach problem solving. It’s imperative that employers invest in the continued learning of their employees to ensure that they are informed and capable of executing their tasks based on the changing standards and competencies required. By prioritizing training, companies can drive innovation, improve efficiency and better serve customers.
The need to upskill varies for each industry. If you’re a healthcare provider, your staff may need to be updated on any changes to platforms like EHRs, telemedicine platforms, AI for diagnostics or any other data analytics tools that are used regularly. Ensuring that your staff has a sufficient understanding of how to use these tools and advancements in medical technology can keep you in compliance with changing healthcare regulations and protocols and retain talent amid the current healthcare talent shortage. If your business is in logistics and supply chain, you’d want your teams to be proficient in SCM software and know how to navigate logistic automation tools and AI forecasting. Global supply is extremely complex. Having employees that know how to take action with real-time data is invaluable.
As industries evolve, the ability for employees to demonstrate relevant, up-to-date skills has never been more critical. Whether you, as an employer, supports that through providing resources or incentives for formal education, on-the-job training, or self-directed learning, providing access to learning opportunities can become an essential strategy for businesses to remain competitive, innovate and meet market demands.
Understanding the Skills Gaps in Your Organization
You can understand skills gaps by first assessing the current skills and knowledge levels of their employees through surveys, interviews and performance evaluations. Compare the skills required for each role with the skills of your employees to identify any discrepancies (i.e. a skills gap analysis). No matter the size of your organization, it can benefit from a skills gap analysis. When doing this it is important to regularly assess current workforce skills against future job requirements to pinpoint skill gaps and prioritize training initiatives accordingly. By taking steps to assess and develop or outsource the necessary training, you can improve employee performance and ensure that your organization remains competitive.
Promoting a Culture of Adaptability
If you want to foster a culture of adaptability, you can do that by providing ample opportunities for employees to upskill and develop new capabilities. Offer continuous learning and training programs that enable employees to acquire new skills and stay on top of industry trends. By investing the time and resources needed into providing internal training, you not only equip your workforce with the tools to adapt to changing circumstances and technologies and demonstrate a commitment to employee growth and professional development.
You can encourage a growth mindset among your employees by actively promoting a learning culture where curiosity, experimentation, and innovation are valued. Managers within your organization can play a crucial role in this by supporting and encouraging employees to explore new areas of interest, take on challenging projects, and learn from both successes and failures. By fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement, you can empower employees to embrace change, adapt to new situations and thrive in a work environment that’s always evolving.
Building an Internal Talent Pipeline
There are a multitude of benefits from implementing in-house training and upskilling programs. One benefit is establishing an internal talent pipeline within your organization. By offering opportunities to upskill, you nurture and retain talent. By providing your employees with the training and competencies that can help them progress in the company, more than likely they can fit the criteria for higher-level positions internally, reducing the need for external hiring. Promoting career advancement opportunities from within strengthens the internal talent pipeline.
Creating a standard for employees to hold and maintain a Learning and Employment Record (LER), can help both employers and employees track learning progress and gather data that will highlight where the internal skills gaps are within the organization. Investing in the upskilling journey of your employees while utilizing LERs can not only help retain talent but point you in the direction of new talent that has the skills and competencies that you’re looking for.
Overall, internal training and upskilling initiatives contribute significantly to building a strong internal pipeline by nurturing and developing employees, preparing them for advancement opportunities within your organization, and ensuring a continuous cycle of talent development.
If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to assessing internal skills gaps and sourcing the right training tools, EBSCOed is a trusted partner of employers across America, providing access to not only training and upskilling resources, but also a pool of talent that’s matched based on skills and experience. The learning tools provided by EBSCOed empowers employees to take ownership of their learning journeys and provides digital Learning & Employment Records (LERs) that not only tracks their learning and experiences but provides insight on what steps they may need to take to progress in their education or career. Get in touch with us by visiting www.ebscoed.com
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