Employees switch jobs more than ever before. Investing in your workforce is a must. In LinkedIn’s 2022 Workforce Learning Report, L&D professionals listed upskilling and reskilling employees as the primary focus of L&D programs in 2022.

Employee skill development helps workers meet organizational standards, cuts down replacement costs and improves workplace performance. That’s why more leaders focus on upskilling their team with tools like a learning management system.

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Companies that don’t provide enough growth opportunities risk lower engagement, higher difficulty maintaining a talented staff and the possibility of losing top performers. To shed light on this issue, let’s look at why skills are important, how to determine the information workers need and how organizations can cultivate a culture of improvement.

Article Roadmap

• Benefits of Employee Skill Development
• How To Determine the Most Important Skills
• Methods of Employee Skill Development
• How To Increase Company-wide Education
• Final Thoughts

Primary Benefits

We are in the middle of a skills gap crisis. Nearly one-third of employers surveyed in the 2022 Monster’s Future of Work report agree that the skills gap has increased from a year ago, and 87% report they have trouble finding qualified candidates.

Teaching employees new skills affects retention and turnover rates. Based on a Korn Ferry report, 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025, driven by organizations taking the responsibility to fill skill gaps.

A solid skill development plan meets your company’s skill requirements, drives employee retention and increases workplace engagement. Read on to see the key benefits skill development adds to an organization.

1. Talent Attraction

Driven, successful people want learning opportunities. The LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2021 found that upskilling and reskilling are the top priority for L&D programs globally. It’s not just a good practice to keep employees engaged – it’s essential to creating a positive workplace environment.

2. Staff Development

Employees have their own career goals and are always looking for ways to reach their full potential. If their current workplace doesn’t have sufficient programs, they’ll look for one that does. Skill development reduces the risk of losing employees due to a lack of opportunities and equips them to take up new roles and responsibilities with added capabilities.

3. Succession Planning

Investing in workers today means creating managers for tomorrow. Without strong leadership, teams fall apart. That’s why you need a succession plan. By investing in personal and professional growth — coupled with the use of talent management software to automate the process — you can identify and promote candidates who add the most to a company.

4. Engagement

Career growth keeps people motivated. Your staff is much more likely to improve with a clear plan and well-defined goals. Training & Development (T&D) practices allow businesses to compete, innovate, produce, improve service and reach objectives.

5. Performance and Productivity

Talent is the greatest asset of any organization, so you need to protect and invest in them like any other resource. Training opportunities contribute to better employee retention and overall increases in productivity.

Learning management systems can help motivate employees and boost productivity.

6. Continuous Improvement

Incorporating workshops, industry-specific conferences and learning materials about new developments can all be effective tools in ensuring your workforce is ahead of the curve in your industry. You don’t want to play catch-up with the competition.

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How To Determine the Most Important Skills

Deploying strategic tools to develop employee skills is vital to identify weaknesses, drive retention, increase productivity and help employees adapt to changing roles and responsibilities. Figuring out the right competencies for your team helps everyone. While buy-in from workers is essential, managers need a roadmap for career progression.

Here are a few factors to consider:

1. Industry Awareness

Keeping up with trends can be difficult. Technology and best practices are shifting faster than ever, so even the most eager-to-learn can fall behind. Staying up to date with ever-changing learning development system requirements and implementation requirements is vital to enhance organizational performance and accelerate business operations. Use an efficient LMS to monitor the most relevant info.

All-around skill development is instrumental to a growth-oriented workplace culture.

2. Communication

From the day a new person joins the team, you need a clear strategy for promoting and encouraging communication between colleagues or between different level positions in the organization. Strong communication reaps big benefits and makes the workplace more pleasant for current and prospective employees. Moreover, it facilitates healthy relationship-building and creates an interactive work environment.

3. Technology

Industry-specific software solutions are a reality for most businesses, so you need a system for training quickly and effectively. While technology is becoming more intuitive each year, it’s also changing faster than ever. Both organizations and individuals must be ready to adapt.

Here are just a few in-demand technology skills to learn in 2022:

• UI/UX Design
• Quantum Computing
• Salesforce
• Blockchain
• Robotics
• Data Engineering

4. Soft Skills

AI and automation are becoming more prevalent. They’re especially needed in leadership to attract and retain top talent and mitigate future problems. Besides, they excel in team communication, improve conflict resolution and help employees perform better in a diverse environment.

Here are some of the most important according to LinkedInLearning:

• Creativity
• Persuasion
• Collaboration
• Adaptability
• Emotional Intelligence

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Methods of Employee Skill Development

Create a roadmap of domains you need to address and navigate areas of improvement. It’s important to focus on the developmental strategies needed to maximize production and reach full organizational potential. It’s essential to outline short-term and long-term requirements, organize training resources, collect feedback on initiative performance and welcome employee recommendations to improve existing practices.

Listed below are a few techniques to consider:

1. Team Building Meetings

Don’t limit official meetings to work-related announcements, employee reviews and task updates. Include friendly exchanges, group activities, interactive conversations and other developmental elements to brush soft skills, improve team coordination and better interpersonal relationships. It helps build an open-minded work culture for your workers, making them feel comfortable excelling within.

2. Training

Offer user manuals, guides, how-to tutorial videos and eLearning courses, along with other educational tools and resources, to improve work-related knowledge. Employees can develop new skills and improve existing ones to evolve to ever-changing job requirements. 46% of employees surveyed in the Degreed State of Skills 2021 report believe their current skill set will become irrelevant by 2024.

Since individual training is time-consuming and heavy on the pocket, form small groups and organize skill-based workshops for your workers. Put job rotations into place to determine whether an employee can perform new tasks other than the ones assigned. Help them develop new skills by making room for practical learning and assignments related to new duties and roles.

3. Coaching and Mentoring

Polish employee skills with the help of personal intervention and greater attention. Give directions to workers, assign group projects, help them complete tasks better and regularly monitor their work to track improvement levels and identify drawbacks.

Mentor employees for high-level responsibilities and let them innovate to perform skill-based jobs. Start career-based discussions with your workers to grasp their areas of interest and channel efforts in the right direction.

4. Team Interaction

Encourage interpersonal communication to create an accommodative and diverse work environment. Evaluate employee interests, organize group activities, ask questions, start discussions, invite input and encourage participation to strengthen their expertise in multiple job roles.

It’s vital to understand if your workers are keen on taking up new tasks or presenting an innovative idea to improve the business. It boosts employee confidence and creates a progressive work environment.

5. Feedback

Allow employees to make suggestions, share input and review practices to examine existing methods and boost efficiency. You can send feedback forms weekly or monthly, hold ask-me-anything meetings or have personal discussions with each employee to understand their sentiments better.

Evaluate areas of improvement, eliminate loopholes, outline shortcomings, add new developmental approaches and create a constructive route for workplace collaboration.

6. Performance Review

It’s always helpful for employees to understand the direction of their efforts and know if their work is producing desired results. Organize monthly or quarterly meetings with each worker to discuss their performance, send review reports, communicate constructive feedback and encourage and recognize employees.

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How To Increase Company-wide Education

Once you’ve identified the methods of skill development, here’s how to ensure the smooth integration of a development plan.

1. Strategize

Many companies haven’t established an efficient strategy for staff education. It’s usually more of a bureaucratic procedure than an actual plan. Sometimes, it’s completely overlooked. Changing job roles and requirements need employees to build skills that match fluctuating organizational benchmarks.

A skills gap analysis helps employers identify the difference between what they need and what their current workforce can offer. Identify and describe essential competencies, assess staff performance, collect feedback and analyze the results for gaps and areas of improvement. Include employee training methods like online courses, mentorship programs, conferences and more to develop new talents.

2. Invest in Tech & Money

Companies use appropriate LMSs to track education, competencies and previous or ongoing training. Then, they match them with the company’s goals, allowing employers to establish clear benchmarks for different roles. During the early stages of hiring, a talent management system can observe candidates and identify opportunities.

Devising a solid development plan helps train employees effectively.

3. Address Skill Gaps

Once an organization implements its LMS, managers can identify gaps and fill them through new hires or reskilling. It serves as a platform for training and development, easily integrating multiple e-learning solutions, webinars, classes, conferences and much more.

4. Scale It

With one-on-one coaching, it’s challenging to coordinate training through multiple locations. Information can get lost or corrupted in a game of telephone. A cloud-based LMS ensures training is consistent and available to everyone. By choosing an LMS with high automation that integrates with your pre-existing HR or marketing tech and can accommodate a considerable number of simultaneous users, you’ll ensure sustainability as your company grows.

5. Check In Regularly

Once the process is underway, it’s essential to know your team is engaged. Check-ins can be done through official meetings or via online messages. Even lectures about other topics act as a forum for checking on learning. Discussing and sharing new skills keeps an open dialogue about training for everyone.

Keeping a tab on employee activity facilitates timely communication and work management.

6. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Allocate the resources to make sure everyone feels they have a place in the workplace’s future. By investing in workers, you keep current workers and build a reputation to attract top talent from competitors. According to Training magazine’s 2021 Training Industry report, U.S. training expenditures rose nearly 12% to $92.3 Billion in 2020-2021.Prepare to add room in the budget if you’re serious about making training a priority.

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Final Thoughts

As the skills gap grows, cultivating and retaining talent becomes more vital. Companies become more productive with more engaged workers by focusing on industry-specific info, communication, tech and soft skills. By implementing regular check-ins, creating strategies and investing in growth, an organization creates a culture that encourages its staff to grow and flourish.

Team development has never been more pressing. You can either approach the problem head-on or risk getting left behind.

Are specific skills gaining prevalence in your industry? How has your company found challenges or opportunities in this area? Which learning management tools are most effective in learning and training? Leave us a comment below to join in the conversation!