This is a guest post from Paul Newnes, Director of Innovation at Talent Works, as part of our Recruiting Weekly Series. Paul shares his thoughts on Upskilling teams to create the next generation of leaders.
It’s one thing to hire more junior staff and train them up to be a leader, but if you already have someone showing great leadership qualities, then it could be an idea to take a chance on upskilling and promoting them. LinkedIn’s 5th Annual Workplace Learning Report (2021) identified upskilling and reskilling as the top areas of priority amongst L&D leaders, as well as a top area of investment.
Upskilled employees are also more likely to have loyalty towards your business and already know the ins and outs of the company, which is the one thing you will have to teach a senior hire, no matter how skilled. There has also been tremendous innovation in training services to build and assess skills when hiring existing team members.
The next generation of leaders
According to a report by Gallup, the top reason for an employee quitting their job is lack of opportunity. However, offering recognition and upskilling current staff by providing further training can increase work performance by 20% and increase personal learning capacity by 20%. Therefore, not only will your staff benefit from enhancing their personal skills and profiles, but businesses will be able to retain their best employees.
One thing that the COVID-19 crisis has made clear for business leaders is that flexibility and transferable skills are incredibly valuable. In a time where change is the only constant, upskilling allows employees to be more versatile and able to respond to market changes.
Leaders know that technical skills are still vital for business success in the future. While transferable and soft skills are useful in any role, it’s essential not to overlook skills such as data analytics, social media marketing and software development.
On the more technical side, they may be data practitioners who have worked across multiple industries for decades before big data, machine learning and AI became mainstream, but who might not have a data science degree. These may be prime candidates for upskilling.
COVID-19 has given us a glimpse of the future, and leaders need to ensure that they have the capabilities to deliver in a tech-first society. Focusing on both transferable soft skills and technical abilities should help to put you in a stronger position post-COVID-19.
Team training
For an upskilling or reskilling programme to be successful, it requires in-depth planning. Businesses must identify the skills they wish employees to attain, which could add the most value to the company. Identifying these areas can be done through talent-mapping, which can give you a short, medium, and long-term plan for the type of talent your business will be looking to hire.
Customising programmes based on employee learning needs, closely monitoring adoption rates, and exploring external resources for training are some of the critical aspects of any reskilling strategy and must be taken into consideration. You also need to find a way to motivate employees to learn while they work remotely. Consider an incentive with rewards or making the learning experience feel more collaborative.
Looking to the future, businesses need to ensure they have strong leaders within their workforce to handle anything thrown their way. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s the importance of having strong guidance. By upskilling loyal staff with already impeccable business knowledge and attitude, other employees will be keen to seek their own personal development within the business and follow suit.
Within any business, it is crucial to have recognised leaders within your staffing setup. Leaders can come in various forms and work at different levels of the company. They do not necessarily have to be the CEOs and directors. More importantly, there will already be leaders within any business, they may just not be recognised yet.
Author Bio:
Paul Newnes is Head of Innovation at Talent Works. He has 25 years in technology and previously founded award-winning digital agencies across both the UK and North America.
