The Great Resignation: An Opportunity to Upskill and Reskill Workforce

Enterprises globally are struggling to minimize the impact of the great resignation on their business operations, today. Many business leaders consider it as a challenge or crisis that they need to endure. Instead of considering the great resignation as a potential business disruption, business leaders should consider it as an opportunity to transform their workforce.

As the U.S. economy is still recovering from the implications of Covid-19 and the shift in the workforce, upskilling and reskilling employees is one of the most effective ways to retain employees for a longer period. Enterprises have become more vigilant about the skill gaps because a lack of skilled resources can tremendously impact business continuity. It is a challenging task for HR professionals to replace vacant job profiles with qualified resources. Business leaders should consider investing in designing and implementing effective Learning and Development (L&D) departments to minimize the impacts of the great resignation.

“Upskilling and reskilling are essential for resiliency and successful change management. Investing in current employees – especially through internal mentoring – nurtures a culture of paying it forward, allowing business leaders to prepare wisely for future growth and honing targeted skill development to ensure employees are ready to execute business goals,” says Omer Glass, CEO and CO-founder GrowthSpace.

Reskilling and upskilling programs can revolutionize business operations only if enterprises consider training as one of their top priorities. Enterprises that want to convert the great resignation challenge into an opportunity to upskill their employees need to have a strategic employee learning and development plan in place.

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Business leaders can consider the following strategies to leverage upskilling and reskilling resources to minimize the impacts of the great resignation and talent gaps:

Consider L&D as a business investment rather than an expense

Many enterprises fail to develop their employees’ skills because they are unable to align the learning and development operations with the business requirements. Business leaders need to consider developing employee skill sets as a crucial business investment. Reskilling and upskilling employees will enable organizations to reap benefits in the long term.  Enterprises need to develop an effective L&D department that has well-defined workflows to accomplish business goals and establish measurable learning Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to evaluate success.

“Like any outcome-driven talent development program – the end goals need to be clearly defined and then the experiences shaped to fit them. Internal mentoring, for example, is a highly effective method for upskilling and reskilling,”

– Omer Glass, CEO and CO-founder of GrowthSpace.

According to a recent report by Gallup, commissioned by Amazon, titled “The American Upskilling Study: Empowering Workers for the Jobs of Tomorrow,” nearly 48% of the workforce will switch to a new job if that organization provides skills training opportunities. Organizations that want to improve their employee retention rates need to emphasize developing the resource skillsets. Business leaders can develop a strategic learning and development plan that focuses on leadership development and decision-making skills. It is crucial that the leaders identify the future leaders, train them and conduct consistent brain-storming sessions to explore new opportunities to achieve their business objectives.

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Concentrate on the employee needs in real-time

There is a tremendous paradigm shift in the entire global work culture and processes that have transformed enterprises at the core. Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are the new normal, and industry veterans are exploring opportunities to implement them in every aspect of their business operations. Embracing artificial intelligence and automation will eat up a few jobs while opening other positions to ensure business continuity. Enterprises need to be aware of the latest trends in the industry and their operational and talent gaps to understand where to focus their upskilling and reskilling efforts towards. Organizations that align the learning and development processes with the employee and market needs will enable them to ingrain resilience in their business operations. According to GrowthSpace research, 75% of the survey respondents say that L&D increases their engagement and satisfaction at work. Enterprises with a satisfied and engaged workforce will have a higher employee retention rate.

Develop a customized upskilling tech stack

Reskilling and upskilling at scale for globally dispersed teams requires significant investment in developing end-to-end learning and development tech stacks — such as assessments, skills inventory, content, learning tech stack, and analytics. Business leaders, instead of developing a tech stack from scratch, are exploring options to partner with various vendors that offer an effective tool to upskill and reskill the workforce. Such business leaders need to concentrate on customizing the tech stack as per the organization’s context to have a positive influence on the business processes.

Ingrain a work culture of development

Business leaders need to set a work culture that seamlessly adapts to change and is resilient during crises. Implementing a work culture that makes the resources take ownership of their own reskilling with regular interventions with subject matter experts is essential for most businesses. Employers need to make the right tools, flexible resources, and supportive context accessible to their employees to customize their personal reskilling journeys. The same report by Gallup commissioned by Amazon suggests that nearly 65% of the workers believe employer-offered upskilling is crucial, and they consider it as an important factor while evaluating a potential new job.

“Sometimes there is no employee within an organization to take an open role. But oftentimes, there are existing employees who have the potential to move into different roles, departments, and even levels of seniority. Employees in need of talent development are a hugely underrated and untapped resource for organizations looking to fill open positions. Imagine the resources that could be saved on recruitment and onboarding if only existing employees were poised to move within the company to fill new roles,” adds Omer.

Organizations need to strengthen their learning and development by staying relevant and updated. Moreover, they also need to design and implement their own customized learning interventions to increase their ROI. Another research by BCG titled “Decoding Global Reskilling and Career Paths” suggests that nearly 68% of the survey respondents are willing to retrain at any cost, and approximately 28% will re-train their workforce if necessary.

Modern enterprises should consider the great resignation as an opportunity to upskill and reskill employees to ingrain resiliency in their work culture and enhance their productivity.

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