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Benefits of Reskilling your Employees

human resources development

An increasing number of companies are focusing on hiring professionals and training existing employees for the purpose of fundamental innovation for existing businesses to improve productivity, developing and expanding new businesses along with digital transformation.

When it comes to recruitment costs and opportunities, however, hiring professionals comes with challenges, and many organizations are now empowering reskilling existing employees aiming to create new values and enhance new or existing businesses with digital technology.

Regardless of the trend above, it is true that L&D or HR pros are struggling to successfully reskill employees in many cases. This is because they are on the way to find specific strategies, and are repeating trial and error. In this article, we explore the successful reskilling for existing employees.

What is Reskilling?

Reskilling refers to the process of learning new skills for a different job role within the organization. It typically occurs when there is a significant change in an employee’s previous tasks or responsibilities.
Large investments have been made for the corporate strategies in many countries. The Japanese government mentioned the need for human resource development and reskilling in the statement in 2021, and there has been a growing interest in this field.

Difference between Reskilling and Relearning

Reskilling is sometimes confused with recurrent education or relearning, but their essence and purpose are quite different. Recurrent education," or simply "relearning," in which a person leaves his or her job, is merely an enhancement of an individual's skills to better perform his or her current role. On the other hand, "reskilling" is part of a company's business strategy to create new value.

Reskilling Relearning
Definition To acquire the skills and knowledge required for new tasks Repeating cycles of education and employment throughout life.
Objectives Turn existing employees into professionals in their new roles. Improve skills to better perform in current roles
Subject business Individual

Why reskilling is attracting attention

One of the reasons why reskilling is attracting so much attention is the proliferation and promotion of DX and GX (Green Transformation). Companies are being forced by these influences to make drastic changes in corporate management, from strategies to products and services, and workflows. As a result, not only disappearing jobs but also new jobs and workflows are being created, and it is becoming an urgent need to secure human resources who can handle them.

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Background of the need for reskilling

Let's look at the background behind the need for reskilling from the three points of "market trends," "management strategy," and "human resource strategy.

market trend

One major background is the rapid changes in the external environment (market). Three main factors are listed below.

  • Development of technology with a focus on digital (DX and GX)
  • SDGs, ESG, LGBTQ, and other trends emphasizing corporate social suitability and social impact
  • Semi-forced social transitions due to new coronavirus pandemics, etc.

management strategy

As market trends change, corporate management strategies will need to be "management oriented beyond the existing framework. Existing businesses will need to reform their operations and improve operational efficiency through the use of digital technology, while new businesses will need to develop and expand with DX in mind.

Human Resources Strategy

Given market trends and business strategies, it will become essential to secure professional human resources capable of creating new value. However, it is difficult to recruit and secure human resources for the following two reasons

  • Overwhelming seller's market and chronic shortage of professional personnel
  • Unless a company has a large budget and strong points in recruitment, it cannot make professional recruitment the main focus of its human resource strategy.

In other words, rather than hiring new personnel, reskilling existing employees to become professionals is required.

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What are the benefits of working with reskilling?

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After taking into account the reasons why reskilling is attracting attention and the background behind the need for it, we will introduce the benefits of actually working on it.

Resolving the shortage of human resources

As mentioned in the previous section, it is becoming increasingly difficult to secure professional personnel who can create new value. By reskilling existing employees and training them with the skills necessary for the business, it will be possible to secure human resources within the company. Furthermore, you can expect to reduce recruiting costs while eliminating talent shortages. However, compared to recruiting, reskilling existing employees takes time and costs a reasonable amount of money.

business streamlining

If digital technology can be mastered through reskilling, internal DX will advance, enabling not only time and cost savings through automation and streamlining of existing operations, but also accurate data analysis and centralized data management. By streamlining operations, we can expect to have more time to work on new, more advanced operations, and furthermore, we can expect to reduce labor costs by decreasing overtime hours and improving work-life balance.

Generating new ideas

By acquiring new skills through reskilling, the possibility of creating new ideas that go beyond the existing framework increases. New skills and ideas will not only lead to the launch and growth of new businesses, but will also contribute to existing businesses, leading to overall company growth.

New business initiatives by existing employees who understand the company

Even when highly professional personnel are hired from outside the company, there is a risk that they may not fit with the "company itself," such as management philosophy and per-pass, or that they will not work well with existing operations or communicate smoothly with existing employees. By reskilling existing employees who are familiar with the corporate culture and operations, it is possible to reduce risk and tackle new business.

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How to proceed with reskilling and what to keep in mind

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By following the five steps listed below, you can proceed with the reskilling that is now required of companies.

STEP1: Set the target scope (range)

First, from the management and business strategies, the target job categories for reskilling are defined. It is recommended to divide the target job categories into quadrants by importance x number needed, and target job categories in areas of high importance and high number needed. It is important to prioritize the occupations that will have the greatest impact on creating new value with limited resources.

STEP2: Define job/capability requirements

Once the target scope is defined, clearly state the job description of the target job and define the necessary capability requirements (e.g., small and medium project management skills). Once you have defined the capability requirements, subdivide each capability into learning element levels. Developing a training program while incorporating the learning elements included in the capability requirements will help you build an effective reskilling program.

STEP3: Establish training system

The next step is to establish a training system. Building a training system means designing the necessary training programs and learning processes for the goals to be achieved. Since the goals to be achieved through reskilling measures have been determined in STEP 2, let's check the reskilling training system, including the goals of each training program, development of training programs calculated backward from the goals, consideration of pre- and post- measures to promote learning retention, and construction of learning processes that take into account pre-, post- and parallel relationships of learning. Let's check out Riskiering's training system.

STEP4: Training implementation

Once the training system is established, the training should be implemented according to the schedule. Selection of instructors and preparation of lectures are extremely important in the implementation of training. Instructors must be familiar with the elements of learning, be able to deliver lectures that meet the learners' motivation and level of understanding, and have the flexibility to respond to sudden problems. With thorough preparation and flexible management, the picture drawn in STEP 3 will come to life.

STEP5: Effectiveness measurement and follow-up/advancement of next measures

After completing a series of Off-JT, maximize and measure the effectiveness of Off-JT and promote follow-up OJT. Measuring whether the goals through reskilling measures and the goals of each training program have been achieved, and separately taking care of any areas that are lacking, including the implementation of additional Off-JT, improvement of the training environment, collaboration with the site promoting OJT, and monitoring of OJT are effective means of achieving these goals. In addition, the points for improvement identified in said measures and points to be adopted on an ongoing basis will serve as input for the next sophistication of reskilling measures.

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Summary

In this article, we have explained the definition of reskilling, its introduction, and specific ways to promote it. Implementing reskilling can result in a variety of benefits, such as reforming existing businesses, resolving human resource shortages, and developing and expanding new businesses, including those in DX contexts.

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This article was written based on useful materials from Change Inc. and supervised by Change Inc. A service that promotes reskilling and fosters professional human resourceslismoreIf you are interested through the article, please check it out.

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