According to a recent Gallup study, more than half of U.S. workers want to update their skills, and nearly one in every two people is willing to find a new job. Over the last 12 months, “The Great Resignation” has seen companies lose talent at a pace unlike before, with toxic corporate culture, a lack of recognition of work, and poor learning opportunities cited by departing employees. The time is now to invest in employee experience.
According to Gallup, companies with highly engaged workforces outperform peers by 147 percent in earnings per share. Meanwhile, teams with low engagement report 18 percent to 43 percent higher turnover rates than engaged ones. How do you hold onto your best people and show them they can grow with you in a changing labor market? Reskilling and upskilling are among the most impactful ways to achieve this goal.
Employees offered meaningful opportunities to learn and grow are nearly three times more likely to be engaged than those who aren’t. A Harvard Business Review survey of 6,500 employees and 75 HR leaders found nearly all employees (97 percent) would learn a new skill if given the opportunity. In its 2021 State of the Manager Report, LinkedIn found that 91 percent of employees say it’s very or extremely important for their manager to encourage learning and experimentation. And 84 percent of managers said learning could help close team skills gaps.
Investing in reskilling and upskilling
Companies that want to invest in the employee experience through learning and development must prioritize transparency, so everyone knows about the same opportunities. Many talent acquisition teams see the results of a lack of transparency when employees don’t apply for internal jobs. Without transparency, even engaged employees may look externally to advance their careers.
How does a company create long-term engagement through learning and development programs? The first challenge is collecting and analyzing your employees’ current skill sets, experience, and goals. Next comes aligning those skills with career pathing, identifying areas for growth, and providing learning opportunities.
Implementing the right technology provides crucial structure and visibility, equipping employees with the tools to own their career paths. An AI-driven talent experience management platform takes over the heavy lifting, amassing pertinent data and surfacing recommendations for courses, internal gig work, and mentoring.
A skills database enables transparency
Skills management is essential to productive career pathing. Because of the volume of data involved, an AI-driven skills database part of a talent experience management platform saves teams time. It gives employees visibility into what they need to move forward. Incorporating artificial intelligence equips managers and HR teams to foster a meaningful employee experience by managing skills and surfacing internal mobility opportunities employees, and their managers might otherwise miss.
The first step in skills management is compiling a skills base of team members. It might take encouraging them to share, so tell teams why a better view of skills will power a better employee experience and greater growth opportunities.
The skills will come from sources, including:
- Employee profiles with up-to-date information on skills, experience, and job history.
- Employee assessments.
- Manager and co-worker validation.
The AI engine automatically identifies semantic skills (related to other skills in an employee profile) and correlated skills (related to specific job titles), then categorizes other skills into technical, soft, and industry-based. Establishing a skills base for your company develops a common language around skills to support a level playing field where all employees can identify and pursue reskilling and upskilling opportunities. It also enables AI to surface employees’ unidentified abilities and jump-start career pathing efforts.
Career pathing that’s visible — and actionable
Career pathing is a journey. Even if an employee has an idea of the role they’d like to reach, the steps they’ll need to get there aren’t always clear. When employees fill out user profiles, the AI-driven career pathing platform learns about their skills, experience, and career goals. Then, using the organization-wide job hierarchies and skills database, the platform gives employees a fit score and skills gap analysis based on jobs they’re interested in, detailing skills they need to acquire and develop to move forward.
Once an employee identifies the role they’re interested in, the platform points out the most relevant opportunities. It helps the employee create a step-by-step path, acting as a recommendation engine to suggest reskilling and upskilling opportunities.
Curated learning supports goals
Those opportunities in a robust learning and development program include a personalized list of courses, internal gigs, and mentorship possibilities. While most companies use a learning management system for online courses, internal gig programs are now taking off — even at NASA!
An internal gig program is a formalized initiative to match employees with short-term projects and tasks to develop relevant skills. Employees work in different departments for a hands-on learning experience while remaining in their current position. Gig work typically doesn’t require a change in pay or job code and can last as few hours or as long as a few months. When supported effectively, gig programs help employers engage and retain their people while encouraging professional development at scale.
Skills drive internal mobility
Companies that incentivize upskilling see:
- Improved productivity
- Improved confidence in employee abilities
- Engaged team members
- Boosted sense of belonging in employees
Your HR department will benefit, too, as more internal candidates fill positions in their career paths. By implementing an intelligent internal talent marketplace, global logistics leader Kuehne+Nagel increased their conversion rate for internal candidates by 22 percent overall, decreased their time to fill internal requisitions by 20 percent, and achieved a 74 percent employee satisfaction rate with the experience — all in less than three months.
Maintaining a robust learning and development program that nourishes your employees and fuels retention and success is an investment. With AI to supplement your team’s insights and abilities, you’ll offer personalized attention to foster engagement and give employees the tools they need to thrive.
