Written by Sally-Ann King | 9th November 2022
Upskilling employees helps them grow personally and professionally, reach their potential and gives them more reasons to remain with your business. It enables continuous learning and helps keep your team motivated, as they will be developing and feeling more fulfilled. It is well established that happy, fulfilled employees perform better.
Both “hard” skills, such as technical knowledge, and “soft” skills like emotional intelligence and problem solving, can be improved through upskilling.
First, identify where your people have skills gaps. This can happen during appraisals or mentoring sessions, or you can ask individuals where they feel they would benefit from training.
Upskilling can be achieved in several ways including online courses, mentoring and microlearning – an educational strategy that breaks down complex topics into short, simple, stand-alone units.
The decision to invest in training should also be linked to your business goals – so while you want to support your employees, focus on developing the skills which are of most benefit to your organisation.
How upskilling supports recruitment in your business:
- Upskilling retains talent
People often move companies when they feel they are stunted in their career development and cannot grow in their role. Allowing them to take courses that align with their goals and interests can improve retention, as they will be less likely to look elsewhere to gain skills. A lower employee turnover is often viewed more favourably by customers or prospective employees.
- Upskilling is cost effective
Upskilling employees can save two types of costs – money and time. Recruiting new employees can be laborious and heavy on costs and time for advertising posts, interviewing and training. Developing the people you have and growing a more efficient, well-rounded and happier team is a much smarter investment.
- Upskilling helps overcome recruitment problems
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) recently reported that upskilling is the most popular response to hiring difficulties – above raising wages. Just under half (47%) of employers have hard-to-fill vacancies that they could counteract by upskilling their current employees.
- Upskilling improves business performance as a whole
A report by PWC looking at talent trends found that organisations which offered more advanced upskilling were more confident in their revenue, and reported a positive impact on their company culture. The report also noted that keeping employees up to date with skills helped organisations become more resilient in times of uncertainty and change.
Practically speaking, as an owner or manager in a growing business, you won’t always be able to develop all of the skills you need within your existing team. The most effective combination is a recruitment programme combined with a commitment to employee upskilling – that way you get the best out of your existing team while creating a culture of progression that makes your business attractive to new recruits.
Here at Reality HR, we offer management and team member training that can upskill your employees, including mental health and wellbeing training. For more information you can email us at: [email protected].