The age of rapid upskilling, reskilling and internal mobility is here. Never before have organisations across the globe seen such rapid acceleration of automation and economic uncertainty, as in the time post covid.
According to the World Economic Forum report published in October 2020, talent is a renewable resource and the sudden shift in workplace dynamics, has created division of labor between humans and machines, leading to 85 million jobs being displaced and 97 million new ones created internationally by 2025.
Here are the top three areas of focus for learning and development programs in 2021:
- 59% Upskilling and Reskilling
- 53% Learnership and Management
- 33% Virtual Onboarding
According to the LinkedIn Learning Workplace Report 2021, reskilling and upskilling programs are relatively new for most talent teams, and there is not a one-size-fits-all approach in terms of how to strategically plan, resource, and execute them.
Why managers are key to reskilling and upskilling programs
- 49% of learning and development pros are working with people managers to drive learner engagement and skill building. That makes perfect sense because managers are responsible for the performance and growth of their teams.
- Only 40% of learners report that their managers challenged them to learn new skills in the last six months.
- 53% of employees feel that their managers support their career goals.
Employees with skills adjacencies are making the leap into emerging roles
According to the LinkedIn Learning Report, it’s a commonly held belief that talent with “skills adjacencies”, or skills that are similar to other skills – are the people who can most easily make the leap from one role to another.
How you can reframe your business through upskilling and reskilling
The most inspiring takeaway from these insights is that people are much more capable of learning new skills and moving into higher-priority positions than traditionally thought. This will be critical given the acceleration of technological change and the increasingly pressing need to retrain and redeploy talent for the new world of work, as the World Economic Forum predicted.
Reskilling and upskilling programmes are relatively new for most teams, and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, how to strategically plan, execute or find resources for them. The Summit methodology helps individuals learn and improve, and for organisations to transform and grow. We are working closely with our clients on how to move the skills-building needle.