Reskilling the Workforce

by Adam Rosenfield, SHRM-CP

The World Economic Forum predicts 200 million workers will be displaced due to technology by the next decade.

That should put fear in the hearts of executives, but clearly they aren’t getting the memo – a  new report from Peppercomm and Echo Research found that 39% of U.S., nonmanagerial employees surveyed said they aren’t getting the upskilling needed to meet technological advancements.

With technology accelerating the change of how the world does business, workers need to adjust to meet their customers’ needs.

The problem? Their executives aren’t investing in re-skilling and upskilling them, and it’s only going to hurt the business down the line to the tune of millions of dollars if workers do not have the skills to compete.

 

The Cold, Hard Facts

The joke being told is that COVID-19 was the one member of the C-suite that accelerated a digital and workforce transformation unlike anything we’ve seen before, and there is plenty of research out there to show that the skills gap is only getting worse.

A McKinsey Global Survey found that 87% of executives said that they were experiencing skills gaps already, or were expected to in the future.

What’s even more concerning is 27% of workers said their CEO’s were champions of active learning. Odd, considering that a Linkedin Learning study showed that CEO’s spend 20% more time learning soft skills than their employees.

All of these statistics show a sobering reality that reared itself a little too early for many organizations.

The positive sign? All is not lost and companies still have time to remedy this issue. Those who don’t, will experience not only an exodus of departing employees but lost profits as well.

 

Reskilling starts with a Culture Change

Let’s be honest-  many organizations have completely botched their workforce response to COVID-19 due to rigidity and an unwillingness to change. There are those organizations who took a lot of heat for investing in employee tracker tools because they didn’t trust their employees to work from home, or leadership that didn’t get that parents had to balance both work and ensuring their children stayed on task with schoolwork.

So we’ll start with the first way to retrain the workforce: trust and transparency.

Some in the political world bash the term “safe space”, but it is a necessary tool if you are going to understand the skills gaps that exist in your organization. There is constant talk of a skills gap between Gen Z, Millenials and Boomers, and you have to create that space for employees to admit they do not know something.

Once you understand that skills gap, you can more accurately create or procure the necessary training needed that fits your specific employees.

 

Understand Learning Differences

One of the biggest mistakes People Operations, Learning & Development and other training and workforce  development related departments make when creating training initiatives is that they believe a one-size-fits-all approach to learning is the most effective way to train.

Newsflash: it isn’t, and this will become even more important in how L&D teams are structured in the future. Companies will have to partner with learning management systems, figuring out a way to use data science and machine learning in order to customize the online learning path of each employee in order to both identify the skills needed for the company, but also to create skills development programs for ascension in the organization.

 

Accessibility and Inclusion

A majority online workforce decimated by the pandemic needs learning experiences that are quick, accessible and offer the quickest way back to employment, and those still employed have that same need. Accessibility is key- creating centralized portals of information like how-to guides, FAQ’s, or even soft skills tips are great ways to help employees bridge the skills gap.

Re-skilling the workforce also requires taking not only a transparent and accessible approach, but one that’s inclusive. Inclusion in training can take a variety of forms, from ensuring the training material is available in multiple languages and accessible for neurodiverse (dyslexic, braille, or in ASL) communities. Inclusive training takes into account a person’s current skill sets, and creates a path despite where they are in the workforce (older workers, Gen Z, mothers/fathers re-entering the workforce).

 

Creating the Opportunity

There are many ways that re-skilling can and will take shape in the workforce. President-Elect Biden has proposed strengthening apprenticeship programs by committing $50 billion to partner with educational institutions, tribal governments, and other organizations. These programs would help identify skills in demand and also help modernize training programs. Getting paid while training is key for not only closing the skills gap, but ensuring those in lower-income professions do not get left behind.

Other organizations have experimented with this. There are a few technology companies who have created micro-internships:  project-based internships to help students use and improve a certain skill to help the company with a specific project. Other organizations have specifically defined stretch projects that they create for employees to help them gain the knowledge they need to progress in the company.

Another way one could look at this is from an industry-wide perspective. What if giants of industries that were in particular regions (Walmart, Amazon, Microsoft, AT&T, Chevron, etc) sponsor industry-wide “future of industry” training initiatives in order to upskill an entire industry, regardless of employment status? Not only could this help the industry better weather training deficiencies that come up, but could also help develop more highly skilled professionals in that particular region, buoying the region’s economy.

 

The Important Skills Not Often Discussed in Re-Skilling Initiatives

Recently, the AustinPeopleWorks team was able to facilitate a large scale multinational training with employees of various supervisory and managerial authority. The topics they trained on focused not on hard skills, but the below skills:

  • Cultural Stewardship
  • What Gets In the Way
  • Laws and Employment Practices
  • Open Mindedness
  • Diversity & Inclusion meaning in the workplace
  • Unconscious Bias & micro-messaging when communicating and interacting with colleagues

You might not think of “open mindedness” or “cultural stewardship” as important skills to learn in a re-skilling training plan. But they might be more important than the hard skills required to fulfill a specific role.

With the world as interconnected as is, employees need to understand the soft issues that persist in the workplace. A managerial employee who lacks an understanding of bias or an inability to communicate with colleagues or clients of another culture could cost an organization millions, both in profit and potential EEOC violations. Similarly, an employee who is well educated when it comes to effective communication with various cultures could be an asset in creating a completely new talent pool for the company.

 

How To Re-Skill Effectively

For large scale initiatives that require skills development and behavioral change two important things are required: time and monetary investment. General Assembly found that 480 hours was the benchmark for developing new skills, and a group from the World Economic Forum and Boston Consulting Group found that reskilling costs $24,800 per person.

The big question- how do you fit 480 hours of upskilling into a job search, and where do you afford the $25k it costs?

The answer: it comes with time, and organizational investment. Organizations, did you know that you can deduct $5,250 from your taxes for employee re-skilling and learning (please consult your tax attorney before you go through with this program)?

So while you invest in your employees, you’re also investing in your bottom line.

 

The Solution

Re-skilling an entire workforce decimated by a pandemic is no easy task. However, the opportunities for large scale training are there. The future of re-skilling will look far different thanks to 2020, and it’s up to organizations to adapt, invest, and track the outcomes in order to ensure success and close the skills gap. Creativity is key as well- your organizations could get creative as well by using a Work Opportunity Tax Credit to hire from an underserved population or other tax credits that are available for hiring.

There are already free or low cost tools out there. Linkedin Learning has plenty of courses. Google is developing professional certificate programs to help worker gain skills in such professions. You can buy company licenses to places like Coursera and Udemy to allow workers to create their own self-paced learning, or mandate certain courses be taken.

Or you could create your own program. Many companies have developed their own program in conjunction with their People Operations and training teams, complete with career development, mapping, and creating custom courses for specific career paths. If you’re looking for soft skills training, or anti-racism training (a huge skills many individuals in companies lack) and you don’t have the in-house resources, perhaps looking at outside consultants could enhance your offering. If you’re stuck with where to start, engaging an outside people resource never hurts.

As Scott Cawood, CEO of WorldatWork said, “getting people back to work isn’t the issue. Getting work back to the people is.” Reskilling isn’t something to be taken lightly. Businesses have to find creative ways to help their workers gain new and necessary skills to keep up with workforce innovation. Proper upskilling programs are not a nice-to-have anymore. They are a must have.

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If you want to know more about how AustinPeopleWorks can help you develop a reskilling plan, please contact us – https://austinpeopleworks.com/contact