Businesses face numerous crises in the current economic climate, but many can be resolved without redundancies or costly expert hires. To meet ongoing skills shortages across technology, practical services, and even forgotten essentials like telephone training, upskilling is vital. It can also address the stress and disconnect that remote workers feel in an uncertain employment landscape, making reskilling a valuable way to re-engage them and boost their personal and company value.
Upskill and Reskill for a Better Workforce
Recent statistics from payroll provider SD Worx reveal that reskilling has become a top priority for HR, with 29.3 percent focusing on upskilling compared to 27.7 percent on well-being. They report, “SD Worx Research shows that 33.8 percent of employees feel they don’t always receive sufficient training to handle new technologies in the workplace. Providing training in digital skills, AI ethics, and data analysis equips employees to thrive alongside emerging technologies, while demonstrating your commitment to career growth.”
But reskilling doesn’t have to be about being glued to computer screens, even for remote workers. Practical courses covering business and market knowledge, marketing, supply chain management, production, and modern office essentials can all benefit the worker and add value to their business roles.
Market-specific training can also enhance their understanding of a company’s role and place within its market. From ecommerce or retail landscape awareness to property market software training via Landlord Studio, and sharing research from the likes of Gartner, Forrester, or McKinsey, these resources can help employees see how they can have a greater impact on their business.
“The property market is an example where every employee, especially those working remotely, needs industry knowledge to understand their objectives and reach for success. Upskilling staff to learn the latest software and market trends will all help improve their business performance,” said Logan Ransley, Co-Founder of Landlord Studio.
Tackling Talent Shortages Internally
For remote workers, the fear of being RTO’ed, replaced, or outsourced is a key motivator to keep them learning. That can be from a half-hour online session per day, to a day-long course, either remotely or in-person to get them collaborating and meeting others.
Whether you’re operating a business in a popular job market like the state of Texas or a smaller environment, the elephant in the room for knowledge workers is using AI to learn how to improve their performance. Answering the question “how can our business use AI?” can make any worker an instant success story. It can help with research, creative tasks, or simply doing the donkey work that takes up much of their day. Companies need to teach workers how to successfully and legally use AI within their business, and how to use their new time on higher-value tasks to help drive the business forward.
There are plenty of free online training courses available for remote workers, or companies can hire trainers to deliver bespoke courses remotely. Any form of supplied training shows workers that their company values them, and should always be followed up with feedback sessions, and distant follow-ups to find how workers are using that training in their roles.
Find and Train Your High-Value Staff
While training can benefit all workers, companies should focus on their “high-impact players” who already add outsized value to the business, but could do more. Your company could have between 20% and 33% of staff delivering 50% or more of the overall value, and those committed workers are the ones, along with high-performing prospects, who can make use of the latest technology to develop their own skills and create fresh business ideas or processes that add further value.
A business should want all colleagues to feel successful and fulfilled at work, helping deliver the best results and experience for clients, users, customers, or others. Some people will be resistant to upskilling and training, so find a balance between supporting those who are keen on the prospect and those who are happy in their current remote bubble, delivering what’s expected of them.
A mix of upskilling and training will also appeal to new hires who want to work for a progressive and ambitious company, rather than one that offers little to no room for growth.
Business Leaders Must Grow Too
Business leaders might wonder why their HR team or department managers are suddenly keen on upskilling and training, but intuition should lead them to understand the necessity, especially in times when hiring freezes, redundancies, or budget cuts may impact performance elsewhere. Leaders might also consider implementing AI tools at work to assist with certain tasks.
They need to focus on the wider goals and trust the process to see the results, as power performers become rockstars and even 9-to-5 workers gain a better understanding of the value they can add.
Managers should set achievement goals in both hard (team or department performance) and soft (exams or courses passed, use of them in business or beyond) categories to highlight results. Whenever an employee requests upskilling or takes the initiative to do so, it should be celebrated and highlighted across the business as a positive example.
Human resources teams must quickly identify changes and benefits within the business, adapting to retain high-value talent through upskilling or reskilling to enhance performance, and hiring workers who demonstrate flexibility and growth potential during interviews.
Mix those elements, and your company will have happier remote staff who can add more value across the business and deliver inspiring performance for others. All of which should make upskilling and training a permanent fixture on your business benefits list.
