The topic of upskilling and reskilling the workforce has been a key priority for many organizations over the past few years. For the purpose of clarity, to reskill is to learn something completely new while to upskill is to update one’s current knowledge and skills to strengthen them. Both of these components are core aspects of a talent strategy. And while upskilling and reskilling were already at the top of many corporate talent agendas, the current coronavirus situation has forced organizations, employees, and workers to radically change how they work. In most cases, new skills are being learned while existing ones are being honed in order to adapt. As a result, learning leaders are rapidly developing and refining strategies to effectively implement reskilling and upskilling tactics at scale and within a shortened timeframe. This 30-page report by PeopleFluent dives into the topic of reskilling amidst 5 forces that, pre-COVID-19, have simultaneously converged on the workplace. They include 1)Increasing complexities in business operations and work 2). The constant and accelerative pace of change 3.) Unprecedented demographic shifts that are shrinking talent pools and draining tacit knowledge out of the organization 4) An increasing need for sustainable productivity in order to create a competitive advantage 5) Changing employee expectations around work and the workplace. For each of the 5 forces, recommendations are offered including those on page 10 which provide tactics, such as learning analytics, to overcome the “complexity” challenge by eliminating irrelevant learning.
