In the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Resignation, companies around the world have been faced with the dual challenges of changes in the skills necessary to succeed and more difficulty hiring new staff or replacing departing employees. Many employers have largely resigned themselves to the idea that they can’t easily bring […]
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In the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Resignation, companies around the world have been faced with the dual challenges of changes in the skills necessary to succeed and more difficulty hiring new staff or replacing departing employees.
Many employers have largely resigned themselves to the idea that they can’t easily bring on new staff with the perfect set of skills for the company’s needs. Instead, the focus for these employers has shifted to training and development of existing staff. In this context, many employers and managers who see potential value in training employees with new skills may be confused by two commonly used terms: “upskilling” and “reskilling.” What do these terms mean, and how are they different?
In simple terms, upskilling refers to enhancing an employee’s ability to perform tasks within their current silo or career path. For example, a software developer might be taught new skills to help her manage not just a portion of code, but an entire application; or compliance specialists might be trained on recently enacted regulations impacting the business.
These new skills enable the software developer and the compliance specialists to take on greater responsibility within their existing scope of work, broadly speaking. The new skills are enhancements and improvements built on existing skills and competencies.
Reskilling, on the other hand, is more focused on teaching the skills necessary to perform a new and different job function. For example, a restaurant that has been unable to replace a cook who recently resigned might train a waiter to help with some cooking back in the kitchen. Or a manufacturing specialist might be trained to drive a forklift and help load the products they produce onto trucks to support the short-staffed shipping department.
Both upskilling and reskilling represent efforts by companies to improve and expand the skillsets of their staffs, often in the face of a tight labor market. There is a difference, however, in the focus of these efforts, and employees may be more or less receptive to them based on their own personal career aspirations.
An employee eager to rise up the corporate ladder in their current job function may jump at the opportunity for upskilling, for example, but be wary of reskilling that might take them further from their desired path.
Managers should take employee preferences into account when implementing upskilling and reskilling and be sure to clearly understand and communicate which approach they’re taking and which objectives they’re pursuing with new training.
Lin Grensing-Pophal is a Contributing Editor at HR Daily Advisor.
The post Upskilling Versus Re-Skilling appeared first on HR Daily Advisor.
