As the nature of work changes and some jobs rapidly become obsolete, businesses have a task to develop their workforce with in-demand skills needed to keep up with the change and ensure healthy economies.

To address the existing limitations of talent in technology and data-driven jobs, companies worldwide are focusing on building their workforce with reskilling and upskilling programs.

While there is a rise in companies investing in new-age technology, they can only leverage the maximum impact of such investments through the power of people. Taking steps to bridge future skills gaps will improve the organization’s overall talent strategies. And by making reskilling and upskilling programs part of their culture, companies also bring the advantage of attracting and retaining talent.

As more companies realize the value of investing in building a future-ready workforce, here is a three-step roadmap to close the future skills gap.

Kick-Starting by Evaluating Requirements

The skillsets your workforce demands will change along with your business. Talent managers need to consider these talent demands essential for the future of work to sustain in this competitive work environment. Hence, they must analyze the requirements to chalk out a fool-proof plan for building a technology talent roadmap.

For the organization to formulate a future-focused talent roadmap, talent managers should properly understand the business strategy. This gives them a clear direction on which role/department of the organization to prioritize for reskilling. Only a minority of companies have their employees armed with technical skillsets that are must-haves in modern workplaces.

Conducting an assessment gives talent management teams the information required to make strategic decisions about your seamless transition to a more futuristic workforce. As we advance, talent managers need to identify and harness talents around these emerging technologies that become pivotal at a workplace.

Emphasize Harnessing the Priorities

Once you’ve gathered all the information required to initiate the talent-building structure, you need to understand your organization’s current needs.

Identify the weakness and areas that require urgent attention. Stakeholders must collaborate and highlight such shortcomings if, from a technology standpoint, these areas hold the organization from achieving targets and business goals or even hindering customer experiences. By having a clear picture of the required roles essential in alleviating the hindrances, you can then proceed to drafting a skill-building roadmap.

While evaluating the wants of an organisation is a taxing job, talent management teams can focus on the following areas to make the process all plain sailing:

• Evaluate the workforce’s skillset and highlight inefficiencies
• Identify opportunities and technology gaps in areas that require immediate attention.
• Understand the functional abilities needed to support or improve your traditional process.

After analyzing the list of items to be prioritized, talent managers and decision-makers must set a realistic schedule and timeline. While the path to building a technologically advanced team is filled with challenges, it is better for talent management teams to consider the constraints that might hamper your efforts.

As an added benefit, the addition of AI-backed talent intelligence tools can contribute immensely, helping talent managers avoid pitfalls with comprehensive data-backed strategies.

Ramping up the Reskilling Initiatives

With the basic motivation behind your road mapping clearly understood, the next pivotal step for talent management teams is to harness the existing talent with reskilling and upskilling programs.

As the world witnesses a surge in emerging technologies, including IoT, AI, and ML, several industry leaders have amplified their efforts in building a tech-savvy company around these in-demand technologies. The scope of the changes we’ve experienced since the outbreak of Covid-19 has been far-reaching and has demanded urgent attention towards the widening talent-demand supply gap.

Reskilling is a need-of-the-hour solution in this post-pandemic world. Case in point, over 75% of HR professionals agree that reskilling, especially in the post-pandemic scenario, is imperative to meet the coming decade’s digital transformation demands.

Implementing reskilling successfully enterprise-wide is a daunting task for talent management teams. There is an ecosystem-wide lack of clarity on how to map employees to their ideal roles, identify disrupted functions, and shift employees from these disrupted roles in the shortest time possible.

Enter AI-powered talent intelligence tools like Draup, which facilitates & amplifies reskilling initiatives with its one-of-a-kind ‘Reskill Navigator’ that enables talent management teams to address their skill gap challenges. The AI-driven analytical platform delivers real-time insights on hard and soft skills, demand and supply sources of the talent pool, along with insights required to devise reskilling initiatives.

As talent managers find ways to respond to current trends and needs, reskilling becomes an integral part of a company’s success in years to come. Since reskilling has garnered the attention of many companies across industries, here’s a webinar that will explore how your enterprise can achieve unparalleled growth by enhancing talent retention and boosting employee satisfaction.

Join Vijay Swaminathan, CEO & Co-founder of Draup, in his upcoming webinar, ‘Granular Career Progression Simulations,’ where he will be talking about the need to invest in resources imperative to reskill the workforce and meet future talent demands.

Register here to attend this insightful conference on “Listening to What Workers Want” and discover how businesses can build future-focused careers for employees with Career Progression simulations.