Talent Optimization 2.0: Best Practices for Upskilling Your Team

Upskilling can take place as an informal training where employees teach each other skills and everyone learns.

You’ve worked hard to hire a team with exceptional skills that are perfect for your current needs. That is quite an accomplishment, but what happens when your needs change or technology advances? Unfortunately, the workplace doesn’t stay static, and before too long, your employees’ skills will fall behind because your company will have different needs that require different skills. Upskilling will help employees to develop skills they will need in the future so they won’t be caught short as inevitable changes come.

Ways to Upskill Your Team

Companies can provide their own training to ensure that their employees are prepared to handle the challenges and changes they will face. A great way to do in-house training is to take one or two employees who have the desired skills and have them teach the rest.

This option is economical and doesn’t require a great investment of time or outside talent. It can also build a culture of learning and increase bonding and trust among members, especially if all members get to share strengths and teach others at different times.

Microlearning is another great method for upskilling. Taking small chunks of time to train, usually with online or video-based modules, makes upskilling manageable and easy to fit into employees’ daily schedules without disrupting daily activities in a major way.

Lunchtime could be another time to fit in some on-site training. Giving employees lunch while they attend a brief training session every week or month can be an opportunity to ramp up skills and increase employees’ effectiveness, as well as to reinforce a learning culture.

Videos and online learning modules can help busy employees find time to keep learning.

Motivating Employees to Upskill

One way to motivate employees to focus on skill development individually is to lead them through making a Personal Development Plan, or PDP. PDPs provide ownership of employees’ professional development and assist employers in building needed skills for the team and for each individual position.

In some cases, employers want to encourage employees to develop skills off-site or advance their formal education, such as by earning a more advanced degree. Tuition Reimbursement can provide this encouragement by helping to defray the cost of upskilling while giving employees access to top-notch professional development they will need in the future.

Using Predictive Assessments

Workplace assessments can contribute to effective upskilling by giving employees a baseline of their current skills so they know their own strengths and weaknesses. Knowing each individual’s skills can also help leadership match employees to the jobs that can best use those skills. Assessments predict success based on current skills and identify skills gaps that can then be addressed.

Narish International provides top-quality predictive assessments for use pre-hire or with existing employees to identify skills and abilities. We would love to help you build higher-performing teams.