At a time when technology is constantly changing the way we work, monitoring, mapping, and improving the skills of the workforce are the top priorities of any HR leader. According to estimates by the World Economic Forum 200, around 40% of workers will require reskilling for a length of six months.
An organization succeeds when the employees grow and thrive. However, even the most skilled employees often need to learn new skills and require direction to perform well and at par with industry standards. Organizations have a particular focus on the training and development of employees to ensure the company’s overall growth. The constant evolution of employees also provides a positive culture within the organization. Hence, assessing employees’ training and upskilling needs at the right time is imperative. And to enable this, organizations need an automated process.
Companies often see upskilling or reskilling programs as a cost addition and a time-consuming process. At an enterprise level, you need to design a high-quality learning and development curriculum, hire experts to train people, create new projects and mentoring opportunities. Considering the effort, the tendency is to hire new talent that will come equipped with the desired skills.
However, this solution is not as simple or straightforward as it seems, considering the fact that there is a shortage of quality talent in the open market and the cost of hiring is expensive. The massive volumes of job seekers don’t necessarily imply that there are enough skilled people waiting to be hired who will match the skills needed for a job and company culture or values.
On the other hand, when you opt for upskilling of your existing workforce, they are usually familiar and comfortable with the company’s work culture. Once the learning and development framework is in place, it can serve as a multi-stage, continuous skill enhancement solution that helps HR personnel effectively keep their workforce future ready. There is no need to spend heavily on offering hefty pay packages to people with the right ‘skills’, and undertake recruitment processes which are not easy by any means. The key to efficient upskilling with cost efficiencies is to adopt the right technologies and take a stepwise approach that begins with skill matching.
A skill intelligence platform can help your company dynamically keep track of the skillsets available internally, match them to emerging opportunities, and also help identify upskilling and reskilling needs. This approach also enables benchmarking of the employees against the global best practices and performance metrics.
By adopting a skill-centric approach, HR leaders can ensure that the employees are constantly at par with the industry standards. A competitive skill assessment platform enables accurate and swift benchmarking and creation of the skills matrix by analyzing the data received from multiple sources such as assessments, user inputs, and operational data provided by the systems.
With the frequently changing skills environment, HR professionals need help gathering skill information fast enough to meet the changing requirements of businesses. They are responsible for tracking each employee’s existing skill level and flagging those that are necessary for the business’s growth.
This is known as skills intelligence and helps business leaders see their employees’ skills — whether they are at par with the industry, their strengths and weaknesses, and how they match current and future business needs. Organizations can nudge their employees to excel in business-critical skills with this intelligence or knowledge.
Once the skills are assessed, gaps identified, and industry benchmarks understood, it becomes easier for the HR personnel to create effective strategies. These involve a mix of upskilling and reskilling to help the company sustain its growth despite the changing market scenarios.
Conclusion
In today’s technology and data-driven economy, skills intelligence can be termed as the new currency. Simply put, it is the science and art of developing an understanding of who has what skills and how to better leverage — and grow — internal talent. When implemented in true letter and spirit, it can help create a strong sense of camaraderie and a win-win relationship for every employer and employee.
A world-class skills intelligence platform is capable of helping organizations remain up-to-date with their skill-related needs. Whether it is dealing with tech changes to respond to changing market needs or helping existing employees to level up to fresh skills in the market, a skill intelligence platform can be your friend in need.
