Tips for upskilling and reskilling employees

The following are tips on how to upskill and reskill employees to create a more engaged and productive workforce.

1. Start from the top

Define organisational goals

• Assess your future business needs and objectives.
• Engage key stakeholders, including relevant external parties, in the goal-setting process.

Identify skill gaps

After you have assessed your future business needs and objectives, conduct a skills gap analysis. Do this by evaluating the existing skillset of employees and comparing it to the skills required to meet your organisational strategy. Employee feedback is also essential to identifying skill gaps.

For example, if "sustainability" is an objective, an organisation may need to equip employees with skills to undertake Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting and sustainability data analysis. If "cybersecurity" is an objective, an organisation should focus on developing skills to reduce the risk of an employee error contributing to a successful cyberattack. 

Develop an upskilling and reskilling strategy 

• Develop an upskilling and reskilling strategy based on your skills gap analysis. 
• Align this strategy with your organisational goals. For example, if your goals cover performance, innovation, cybersecurity and sustainability, you should adopt these as focus areas in your upskilling and reskilling strategy.

“At the moment, one of the major skill gaps in accounting and finance I would say is digital sensing – to know what tools to use to solve the problem that I have in front of me. So sometimes you might think automation, you need robotics, but in fact you could probably just use your current system a bit better and optimise what you’ve got.”

Stephannie Jonovska FCPA | Head of Finance Operations and Transformation | BlueScope

2. Filling the skills gap

Categorise skills and competencies 

• Determine the skills and competencies needed for different roles and assign training accordingly. For example, classify skills as: 

• Categorise employee’s skill level based on their development stage, such as:

• If your employees are members of CPA Australia, ask them to assess their capabilities against CPA Australia’s Accounting and Finance Capability Framework. This will help identify capability strengths and areas for development.
• Review job descriptions to ensure they accurately reflect the necessary skills for the role. 

Develop training materials

• Divide learning into bite-size segments that are easily digestible and fun to complete.
• Consider outsourcing the development of training courses to third parties such as industry associations, technology providers, universities and vocational training providers. Many offer ready-to-use courses that meet your needs.

Consider a restructure

• Depending on circumstances, organisations can restructure to reduce or remove skill gaps. For example, bring together employees with different (and complementary) skills into teams to tackle problems and identify new growth opportunities. 
• Provide professional development for employees to move into new or retitled finance roles such as “digital finance analyst”. 
• Invest in internal non-professional developers who build applications for use by other colleagues, such as building bots with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) tools. Nurturing your own developers can be a better choice than engaging professional developers. These individuals possess an intimate understanding of your organisation’s processes and can custom-build models that cater to the distinctive needs of the business.

“The digital specialists in my team can talk the language of robotic process automation, machine learning, IT and that of the business. They’re able to gain a real sense of the hype around automation, especially when it comes to joining multiple technologies to automate a variety of processes. Therefore, I believe it’s important not only to upskill employees but also to create the necessary roles that can support this upskilling.”

Stephannie Jonovska FCPA | Head of Finance Operations and Transformation | BlueScope

3. Implementation

Ensure clear communication and support

• Provide clear communication to keep employees informed about training schedules, resources, and any changes or updates.
• Establish channels for feedback and address any concerns promptly.

Encourage competition and meetups

• Organise competitions to encourage employees to showcase their ideas. An example for accounting or finance functions includes a competition to develop data analysis models using tools such as Power BI. 
• Share the winning idea internally so that the organisation can benefit from the best models.
• Host meetups or training sessions where employees can learn from each other or from experts and share best practices

“If employees are not willing to embrace technologies, they risk becoming irrelevant in today’s job market. Being proficient in digital skills can help employees market themselves as valuable assets to potential employers and help them avoid monotonous tasks that may eventually become automated.”

Robert Lui FCPA | Partner | Deloitte China

4. Evaluate

Organisations should develop metrics to assess how successful their upskilling and reskilling strategy is. For example:

• measure the amount of time saved on a task before and after training
• identify whether skills gained can be turned into marketable assets or solutions
• measure an employee's participation by activity-based metrics such as the number of training sessions where the employee was actively engaged.
• quantify engagement effectiveness with quizzes to assess an employee’s level of confidence, in addition to their actual knowledge, on a particular subject. 
• calculate an employee’s confidence level in client conversations before and after the upskilling and reskilling program.

5. The leader’s role

Business leaders play a critical role in guiding, supporting and inspiring the organisation. In driving the upskilling and reskilling strategy, leaders should: 

• create a shared vision of the skills transformation the organisation and employees need
• communicate how automation and digitalisation can enhance productivity and open doors to new opportunities for all stakeholders, including employees
• take proactive measures to understand the concerns of middle management and show empathy towards their teams during digital transformation
• provide support to employees that may face redundancies, such as training and career counselling services
• actively think of roles the organisation may require in the future and proactively anticipate upcoming skills gaps
• be agile and adaptable in training employees in new digital tools and technologies
• create a clear pathway for employees to build their competencies.

“In EY, we say: ‘The mindset and skillset to navigate what’s next. It’s yours to build.’ We create a culture where people come to EY, to be better, our people are mostly self-driven. Our talent development strategy provides the content, the platform and opportunities to grow. Therefore, it extends beyond building skills to becoming a transformative leader.”

Elaine Lim | Asean Talent Development Leader | EY

Conclusion

Retaining top talent is crucial for the success of any business, but it can be challenging. An effective upskilling and reskilling strategy can offer a solution to this challenge. It should provide employees with the skills they need to stay relevant and advance their careers within an organisation. For employers, better trained employees will help their organisation succeed. Employees who feel valued and supported in their professional development are more likely to remain with their employer and contribute to the success of the organisation.