Why You Should Consider Reskilling, Not Hiring

The Great Resignation continues to progress into 2022. Is it time for HR professionals to prioritize retaining current employees over hiring new talent ? To slow down the Great Resignation in your organization, retrain employees and support their continuing education efforts to reinforce the workplace and preserve existing staff. 

A global study from McKinsey revealed that 87% of organizations are currently experiencing a skill gap or are anticipating it within a few years. For an organization and employees, reskilling and upskilling can be valuable investments and bring transformative changes to existing skill sets regardless of experience level. 

Reskilling can be an effective strategy to move your organization forward, so long as the following steps are considered.

Why Reskilling Is Critical for Continued Success

Last year, Gartner reported  that 33% of skills listed in job postings from 2017 had already become obsolete. The same jobs now require 10% more skills than in previous years. This disparity creates a significant knowledge gap. Employers want more from new candidates and strive for higher job expectations within application descriptions. Reskilling can minimize these knowledge barriers and place current talent and employers at an advantage.

Incorporating reskilling can optimize skill levels, with many organizations strategizing their post-pandemic recovery plans as new technology and industry trends evolve. Equipping employees with the tools to enhance their skills is a winning strategy that assists in internal promotions, utilizing new tech stacks, and boosting company value.

Center Input From Employees

Whether kickstarting strategies or continuing employee education initiatives, employee input should be a central principle no matter what stage of the reskilling process. It’s the best way to understand what skills need to be enhanced and which of those skills employees are most confident in. Employee input allows for a greater understanding of where skill gaps lie and delivers insight into the initiative’s performance. In greenlighting employee feedback, development training is tailored to be more inclusive with decisions for professional development.

What are a few ways HR professionals and leaders spearheading development initiatives can gather employee feedback? One of the most effective ways can be as simple as creating an open-ended poll.Dig into questions about what worked and didn’t with previous learning programs.

Additionally, ask how they wish to shape the initiative plan further and what additional skill training could be beneficial. The ongoing continuation of distributing feedback polls can keep development training relevant and current. As employee roles shift and grow through the coming years, consider how you can adapt training sessions for various job positions. Doing so makes training customized and personalized. 

Maintain Energy to Continue Reskilling

Your team can achieve outstanding results by using metrics with continuing workplace education initiatives. There are two areas to monitor: success within the growth of your people and workplace productivity. Leaders can look for critical areas of success such as increased retention rates of employees after reskilling, employee satisfaction, talent attraction because of opportunities to learn and grow, and increased proficiency in roles.

Measuring success becomes smoother when tracking and setting attainable goals. Closely monitoring these metrics will make it easier to guarantee your team is maintaining momentum while meeting the demands alongside company growth.

Managers and initiative leaders can accurately assess knowledge gaps and retention by implementing skills tests and assessments. Organizations and businesses can determine the initiative’s ROI and adjust accordingly through metrics. Creating a robust reskilling program outweighs the cost of hiring new candidates.

Reskilling plans are only effective if nearly everyone is on board with continuous execution. The drive for success can remain in motion by making reskilling programs active, engaging and relevant. Diminishing skills gaps will be a continual process but will significantly impact your organization’s workforce engagement and triumphs. Reskilling is a collaborative process that may take time to see results but will ultimately set your organization apart.

Brian S. Anders is the Director of Human Resources atWorkSmart Systems,

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