The first step for building an HR organization’s upskilling strategy is to answer the question: what key skills will your employees need during the next 1-3 years?

The HR-Head should answer this question for three groups by collaborating with cross-functional leaders: the overall organization, departments or business units, and individual employees.

Consider first the overarching business plan and objectives of your organization. Determine three to five abilities required for the entire organization to attain its objectives. For instance, data science, cloud computing, and innovation may be the most important abilities for a corporation that must adopt new modern technology.

If your organization is quite large and has diverse business lines, it may be more logical to begin at the department or business unit level. Definition of the direction for upskilling then comes down to department managers. The abilities indicated for individual employees will vary greatly based on their roles and objectives for the future. It is essential that employees take responsibility for their upskilling, and career dialogues can facilitate this process.

The next step is to include objectives in your upskilling plan. Specifically, it involves using the HR team’s existing talents as a baseline to predict how it will acquire the future skills it needs to fill gaps. Again, company leaders should consider the entire organization, its business areas, and each employee. Plans vary for different staff members. Depending on the results of their skill review and identified gaps, employees should be required to select one or two talents. 

Figuring out the best ways to achieve the objectives is the third step of the strategy. Employees must choose suitable forms of learning in order to develop their skills and expertise:

• Self-directed online studying. Statistics say that about 2/3 of upskilling employees use specific websites, and more than a half use Google search to learn. One can conclude that online classes, tutorials, podcasts, articles, and YouTube videos are the most common type of learning for employees.
• Team learnings. Up to 50% of workers prefer a series of virtual and in-person learning sessions with a team or peer inside their company. This type also helps to rally the team.
• On-the-spot-learning. Asking employees to help in managing some challenging issues, giving stretch assignments, and sharing increasingly more instructions and responsibilities in practice can increase engagement by up to 30%.
• Peer-to-peer. The third part of employees ask their coworkers or utilize social networks and online forums to gain knowledge from their peers.

The most sophisticated upskilling programs incorporate engaging learning experiences that aid in skill development through practice, feedback, and reflection. The case for a hybrid strategy is strengthened by analyzing how employees learn at work.

As your HR personnel upskills, managers should gather the insights that help measure progress. Data might come from various sources. Content providers such as edX, Coursera, and Pluralsight give several ways for gaining information about the skills individuals are acquiring.

Now is the moment to connect skills with the appropriate possibilities, so the upskilled employees may continue to grow professionally, and so firm leaders and managers can identify existing talent. This entails establishing a dynamic career marketplace that connects people with new initiatives, stretch assignments, and even jobs, facilitating internal mobility.

The final step demonstrates how your upskilling strategy affects your business priorities and emphasizes the value that upskilling provides. This is typically information directed at the highest levels of leadership, addressing themes deemed most important by the CEO and other executives. Use metrics that are particularly pertinent to the business priorities you are trying to achieve, but also important to senior management to communicate your organization's achievements effectively. These may include factors like employee retention, staff engagement, productivity time, the amount of sharing and cooperation that occurs, the percentage of individuals working on new tasks, and revenue growth.

If you would like to discuss effective strategies for upskilling your HR workforce, don't hesitate to book a conversation with us here at Aly Talent. We would be happy to share what some of the most successful HR leaders are doing right now to ensure they remain competitive in this ever-changing market.

Unlike most recruiting firms, we come from an HR background, giving us a breadth and depth of HR knowledge that’s hard to find in the agency space. That’s our difference-maker, and we hope to be able to add that sort of value to our conversion, so we can help make your upskilling project a massive success!