With innovative technologies coming up every day and the world moving towards automation faster than ever before, it has become imperative for entrepreneurs to empower employees with the right skills

According to a recent study, even less than 25% hiring managers said that they offered training to employees for upskilling needs, while over 90% believed that it was the company’s responsibility to do so. Experts say that when employees feel they are not adding anything to their CVs, or creating new opportunities in their career, they start looking elsewhere. Here, we will discuss a few tips to make upskilling effective in today’s busy workplace…

Have a Learning Culture

Managers should consider themselves as coaches first. Having a strong coaching culture within your firm helps learning on the job much easier, especially with a good manager. Such a coach will be able to offer guidance and feedback on the job. They can even make learning fun for people on a daily basis, instead of making it a special event.

Customize Training

A mistake that almost all companies make is treating learning programs just as a formality, where everyone gets the same kind of training. In reality, employers should match training programs with the people that they are hiring. They can take the help of a survey to decide what the employees are looking forward to learning and skills they want to obtain. Employers should also customize the training programs to target skill gaps where it will be most effective. Many a time, resources are used in leadership training for executive teams, but it is the new managers who will truly benefit from such programs,

Promote Internal Talent

Peer mentoring is when a more experienced employee upskills a less experienced one and provides guidance, too. This type of mentoring is valuable and often underestimated. A considerable amount of employee knowledge comes from their personal interactions with colleagues which are difficult to measure because they are not recorded on any database or formal training program. So, look for internal talent that can deliver training to help you build new capabilities.

Hire External Experts

At times, you may need to upskill people further with no in-house capacity. It maybe because the skills you need are too new. You can hire freelance specialists to bring the experience, skills and competencies that you need to start a new project. And, by the time the project is completed, you would have built the capacity that you lacked earlier.

Smaller Training Sessions

Long training periods can be counter-productive. They are not only difficult to manage for employees with demanding workloads, but can also lead to low retention for your company. So, it is better to break up training into small learning sessions, which work effectively. Another format can be micro-learning of three to five minutes, which are mostly held online. This format can be added to a normal workday and include aspects, such as apps, interactive videos and games, among others.

Effective Online Learning

Online training sessions provide flexibility for people. Employees can learn according to their own speed, but these sessions should be conducted properly for the training programs to be effective. If you invest in online learning, you should ensure that the results are suited to those taking them and not just a ‘tick-box exercise’ to show that you have done training.

Debriefing is Important

Fix a time to review what the employees have learnt, or whether they require further help. Do remember that this information is vital for future planning of your business!