Reskilling & Upskilling Your Workforce for the Future World of Work in 2022
The last few years, with the help of the covid-19 pandemic The changing world of work seems to be moving faster than ever before, with skills that were once in demand may not be applicable to the demands of the current working landscape. Organisations that are looking to not only improve their current efficiency but their overall future as a business are aware of the necessity to reskill and upskill their workforce.
Almost all (92%) of certified Top Employers have a learning and development strategy in place in 2022, with 96% of them also continuing to have a learning and development framework. This commitment to creating an environment that is encouraging to employees reskilling and upskilling is supported by 94% of Top Employers having a defined learning and development culture.
In 2020 the World Economic Forum found that, by 2025, 85 million jobs globally will undergo a transition between human labour and machine automation across fifteen industries and 26 economies. While this change in the distribution of labour has been faster than previously expected there is still, according to the World Economic Forum, new era of work will create millions of new jobs that will require a new set of skills that will highlight the value of reskilling and, in the case of other employees, upskilling them. We will look more deeply at this trend in this article by defining and then examining what these terms mean in 2022 and beyond.
What is Reskilling and What is Upskilling?
Reskilling is simply the process of an employee learning a new set of skills and responsibilities to help them undertake a new role in their current organisation. The process of undergoing reskilling is usually lateral learning experience that allows people to make a smoother transition in their career journey.
In contrast, upskilling is the learning and development process for an employee to improve their skillset to improve their effectiveness at work. This involves giving an employee the opportunity to develop and advance a particular skill, or set of skills
Reskilling and Upskilling as Top Priorities in 2022 with an Eye for the Future
As the need for new capabilities and skills increases with the changes in the workplace continuing at a faster pace than ever, reskilling an upskilling can offer an organisation a way to develop the skills needed to ensure that they remain competitive without needing to hire for each new role. The ability for companies to retain their current workforce is not only good for their financial outlook but is also good to deal with employee’s new needs that have come as we enter the ‘new normal’ way of working.
Reskilling and upskilling are useful for employees to help employees transition within the organisation. Acknowledging that this is necessary for the future and starting to do the work to put it in place are two different actions.
The first thing an organisation should begin with is analysing where upskilling or reskilling an employee or a set of employees could help meet changing business needs. This analysis work is particular to each organisation, and as such is not something we will dive into in this article, it is work that will guide how to approach the next steps. It must be reiterated that upskilling or reskilling should be tethered to an organisation’s needs and goals.
The second step that an organisation should do is get to the organisation to structure and standardise their upskilling and reskilling efforts. This can be done by building a skills framework but if an organisation already has a learning framework it can be integrated into that structure. It can take many shapes but if an organisation wants to take reskilling and upskilling its employees seriously it needs to be understandable for the whole organisation in whatever form it takes.
Creating a culture around learning is the final step to making reskilling and upskilling a reality. It will need engagement and excitement around learning to fully benefit. Additionally, there will need to be leadership buy-in to create waves around reskilling and upskilling.
Reskilling and Upskilling Benefits
For the Organisation
- Retain your best employees
- Develop your employees’ skills
- Reduced training and hiring costs
- Increase workplace moral
- Improve the reputation of the company
For the Employee:
- Keep stable employment
- Personal growth
- Professional growth through lifelong learning
- Upward mobility through role diversity
Final Thoughts
Reskilling and upskilling are not only business prioities for now but also for the future. Organisations will need to adapt with their workforce for the changing landscape of work.
Case Study: Talent, Borders and Benchmarks – The Dana Way
Certified Top Employer, Dana Hungary Kft., is a global leader in the design and manufacture of highly efficient propulsion and energy-management solutions. It supports nearly all vehicle manufacturers with drive and motion systems; electrodynamic technologies, including software and controls; and thermal, sealing, and digital solutions. In 2018 they, thanks to the benchmarking benefits of the Top Employers Institute’s programme, were able to get continuous insights and visibility on their employees’ needs.
As they did, they realised that they needed to provide their employees with an international mindset/approach to the job. In response to this challenge, they launched a programme that allowed employees to take on three to six-month assignments in a different location that allowed them to develop a wider cultural and professional knowledge.
Download the Case Study to learn how:
- Dana Hungary implemented their ambitious plan and how their employees responded to the programme.
- The organisation effectively resumed the programme after it had been temporarily suspended during the covid-19 pandemic.
- The model has become a benchmark for the wider organisation as other offices look to replicate the success of the programme in their offices.
Download the Case Study to learn more.
Supporting your talent strategy with Big Data
How can HR analytics and specifically big data be used for talent management?
That is what exactly Certified Top Employer Saint-Gobain discussed in a recent Top Employers Connect webinar. In the latest of our ‘For a Better World of Work’ series, we were joined by Jan Billekens, Manager Group HR Efficiency at Saint-Gobain and Alissa Hankache, Ph.D., Global HR Auditor at Top Employers Institute.
Read ahead to get a snapshot at some of the highlights from the webinar and fill in the form (on the right-hand side of the page) to get the recording to watch whenever you have a moment.
Companies use AI in people-related decisions for many reasons, including consistency, reduced bias, casting a broader net, and efficiency.
Data scientist Cathy O’Neil explains in her book “Weapons of Math Destruction” that algorithms and AI are easy to create using historical data and can improve the efficiency of decision making.
Data from TEI shows that among certified companies:
Approaching HR with analytics
With more than 166,000 employees, located in 75 countries, and a shared purpose of “MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER HOME”, Saint-Gobain is certified as a Global Top Employer since 2016. After internal reflection and deliberation, Saint-Gobain was left with one big question:
“How can we use big data for talent management in a global and highly decentralized industrial matrix organization like Saint-Gobain?
Based on this, the following objectives were established:
- Identify Talents
- Targeted development and career support
- Developing leadership capabilities
Ensure retention and commitment
An approach with three steps was then developed for the HR analytics project at Saint-Gobain:
- Assess Bronze Talent management
- Identify Talents at risk of leaving
- Identify undiscovered Saint-Gobain talents
Assess Bronze Talent Management
The first phase was to look at emerging trends from the algorithm, which came through as follows:
- Career progression – The algorithm has identified that talents within the five years at Saint-Gobain climb two-thirds bands more than non-talents.
- Career follow-ups – In annual succession planning and [erformance reviews, talents were mentioned more often in people reviews than non-talents.
- Development and training opportunities, – Talents have more training opportunities than non-talents.
- Base salary management – Salary increases are higher for talents than-non talents.
- Increasing gender balance – The % of female hired talents is 6% higher than male talents hired – based on strategic objectives.
The conclusion of this first part is that it confirmed that “what we want to do with our talent management is being achieved”.
Identify talents at risk of leaving
The second algorithm – looked into the past and analysed what were the elements of talents who left Saint-Gobain voluntarily in the past. The most impactful parameters were salary increase percentage and the date of last increase. The lower the salary increase, the higher the risk of leaving – no surprise, but it is also confirmed by the algorithm.
An interesting trend emerged when looking at tenure – when the last increase for a salary was between 6 months and 1.5 years, there is a lower risk of leaving. But after 1.5 years of a lower salary increase, there is a higher risk of leaving. The algorithm provided a percentage of the risk of leaving talent – about 150 names. These were then sent to country HRDs with all the parameters of risks included.
They were asked to provide feedback on whether there was a risk of leaving or not (and at various levels of risk). Based on a combination of input from the algorithm, and feedback from HRDs – 100 of the 150 employees were able to be retained. Thanks to employees analytics, Managers were able to take proactive actions to prevent employees from leaving.
Identifying undiscovered Saint-Gobain Talents
One of the interesting components of the webinar was to note how Saint-Gobain uses an algorithm to identify undiscovered talents. Part of the diagram, was important to understand:
- Precision – % of true SG Talents among the Talents identified by the algorithm
- Recall – % of Talents identified by the algorithm among the SG Talents
After consultation with and feedback from country HRDs on the 250 names proposed by the machine, 115 Bronzes talents were detected!
The webinar also discussed various other aspects of HR analytics including:
- Data visualization
- Semantic Analysis
- Data integrity
- Data confidentiality
The key message echoed throughout the session is that HR Analytics is a means besides all other HR tools. HR should take advantage of these digital tools in order to spend more time meeting people face to face
Transforming talent acquisition through the Top Employers Certification Programme
85% of Top Employer organisations agree that the Top Employers Institute Certification creates value for their business, whether it be for their branding, alignment, and benchmarking of HR practices, or connecting with other leaders in HR.
When it comes to branding, Top Employers know that the experience of going through a candidate selection process tells a lot more about the organisation than the brand messaging.
At Top Employers Institute, we are always keen to demonstrate the best ways to leverage value from our Certification Programme.
Independent and externally verified workforce research, conducted globally among our Top Employers, shows that 85% agree that certification creates value for their business.
It is the branding potential that certification brings with it that is one of the most appreciated benefits.
92% of our Top Employers say they make use of the Certification Seal to attract and/or engage talent.
So how can Top Employers make the most of the opportunity that certification creates in this area?
Recruitment: certification makes a big difference
A great employer brand lies at the heart of any Top Employer’s HR strategy. When it comes to getting the best on board, 70% of those surveyed say they have used the Certification Seal to drive their recruitment process.
Strategic employer branding can only ever be as good as the impression it makes on potential employees. On this, the results are encouraging. 74% of Top Employers agree that the certification process has improved their positioning as an employer of choice.
It is easy to see the positive impression that certification makes on external candidates. The noticeable benefits, according to our Top Employers, include:
- Enhanced awareness among candidates, with references to the Certification Seal made in interviews.
- Recognition of the value of certification among partners, such as universities or employment agencies.
- More interest in posted roles, with more clicks and applications made through company careers pages.
- A decrease in both the time taken to fill roles and an increase in quality of applicants.
One Top Employer sums it up well by telling us that the Certification Seal showed potential candidates clearly that “this company is among the best employers in the world”.
High levels of trust between candidate and potential employer lie at the heart of the value that the Certification Seal brings. As one of our Top Employers told us: “For me … most important is that an external candidate [feels that they] can rely on the certificate.”
Onboarding and Induction: Reinforcing the bond of trust
A top talent acquisition strategy, crucially, requires this trust to continue well beyond the initial recruitment process. After hiring comes the equally important task of onboarding and induction.
A recent survey of 1000 full-time employees for People Management magazine revealed that:
- 43% admitted to having changed their minds on at least one occasion after accepting a job offer.
- 37% put this down to poor or no follow-up, or other bad experiences after the job offer had been made.
Engagement and Retention: Creating a virtuous circle
The greater branding opportunities for Top Employers from certification through recruitment, onboarding and induction also go on to produce a virtuous circle among existing employees that enhance their experience.
The independent research conducted for us showed that the use of the Certification Seal helped organisations to:
- Actively involve current employees as talent brand ambassadors for external candidates
- Increase the engagement of existing employees made aware of the achievement of certification.
- Decrease turnover, with employees feeling safe and reassured to work for a certified Top Employer.
Talent acquisition: make it easier with Top Employers institute Certification
Top Employers Institute has guidelines and support for certified employers who want to leverage their people strategy further.
This includes everything from how to promote the Certification Seal as effectively as possible on the web site, email signatures or social media, through to how best to display them in job ads.
Get in touch today and become an employer of choice.
Retaining Top Talent with David Nast
Dave is a three-time CEO and an award-winning business coach with over 25 years of experience in executive coaching, leadership development, change management, career coaching, executive search, talent acquisition, and human capital management.
“The Recession Hangover”
Employers know all too well that workforce behavior is changing, or has changed already. According to the Harvard Business Review, 45% of people who are happy in their jobs are still looking – because it’s worth looking.
Dave attributes behavior changes in the workforce to a “recession hangover,” and it’s creating what he calls a mercenary culture in the talent war: employers are spending a lot of money headhunting the best employees from other businesses.
The end result is that employers have less power than they did during the recession, and there’s now a talent-driven market.
There are a lot of skilled jobs that are coming on the market every day, and people are starting to develop themselves, especially the millennials and Gen Z, by going from company to company to company.
As a recovering headhunter, Dave reports that 75 percent of employees are called once a week by a headhunter… So what are you going to do to make your employee not pick up the phone?
Dave warns business executives not to hire skilled employees by throwing a lot of money at them because if they come to you for money, they can be torn away by more money.
That’s not loyalty.
You want employees who believe in your culture and are a good fit.
Another piece of the recession hangover is that a lot of people ascended to middle management due to attrition and weren’t properly trained in best ways to lead teams.
Forbes, Business Insider, and Gallup have all reported over the past few years that bosses and managers are a leading reason why people want to leave their job, and a significant cause of employee disengagement – as much as 70 percent.
The Cost of Low Retention & Disengagement
According to Gallup, engagement among U.S. employees is now less than 33 percent, and this has a serious cost.
Dave has a turnover calculator he share with clients: for a $50,000/year job, employers spend about 213 percent of that salary to replace the person, on average.
If you consider that the average tenure of an employee right now is 17 months and the average time it takes for an employee to master a job is 11 months, employers – on average – are really only getting 6 good months out of the average employee, and that’s an expensive way to grow a business.
What can executives do to help improve retention?
- You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Workforce and hr analytics are important for getting buy in from executives, and informing a conversation about culture.
- Identify and publicize your values as an organization, and build it into the culture to enhance your employer branding. Shared values are important when employees consider where to work, and when there’s a good fit employees are more engaged and more productive.
- We spend too much time selecting people based on the skills and experience they have, and that changes over time. If we’re investing in our people, they’re going to take classes and develop anyway. So how can we keep them after we develop them? Create an environment where they don’t get bored and they’re constantly being developed.
- Get rid of the annual performance review and replace it with short, weekly one-to-ones. Even just 15 minutes. This fosters trust between managers and employees, and helps managers stay up-to-date so they can remove any obstacles to current projects.
Three Things To Discuss With Your Team:
- The best way to retain top talent is to create a transparent and open culture. An organization that invests in their people; one that sees people as an asset as opposed to a liability, on the balance sheet and in the boardroom.
- Put workforce analytics into play so you can understand, with objective data, what drives your people. Not only will you be able to better accommodate the differences between employees, but you’ll love the differences.
- When looking at the different generations that are working, understand what they need and what they want: employee insights can easily differ in cases like this. Whether it’s Gen-Z coming in, the millennials that have been there for the last decade or so, or maybe Gen-X moving up towards the top now… How can we leverage each other to get the most out of each other? If everybody has their eye on the same mission, it will go a lot better for everybody involved.
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And remember… Develop. Always.
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Resources:
Production & Development for Top Employers Institute’s Talent is Transforming by Podcast Masters
