As the pandemic drags on, many have taken the initiative of retraining themselves. The advent of technology has become instrumental here, helping millions across the globe to reskill for in-demand jobs digitally.
A survey reports that only 17% of companies have invested in reskilling initiatives. On the other hand, companies like Amazon, IBM, and Verizon actively address the skill gaps and train their employers across departments even before the pandemic began.
With investment pouring into reskilling initiatives, organizations have made headlines in recent times with their training programs. We share a few examples of companies that are splurging millions of dollars in retraining their employees to create a future-ready workforce.
Amazon’s whopping USD 1.2 Bn investment in reskilling and upskilling employees by 2025
The e-commerce giant announced a program called ‘Upskilling 2025’ back in 2019, offering opportunities to thousands of States’ employees to “further their careers in high-paying, in-demand roles.”
Amazon’s line-up of training initiatives comes as a lucrative offering to their current workforce. The said initiatives will propel their existing workers to learn a range of new skills and help them improve their existing skills.
The initiative boasts several programs, including recent offerings like AWS Grow Our Talent, Surge2IT, and the User Experience Design and Research Apprenticeship.
Grow Our Own Talent program is catered towards employees with non-traditional experience to spruce up on data center roles such as data center technicians and engineering operations technicians.
Surge2IT is designed for entry-level IT workers to advance to higher-paying technical roles through self-paced learning materials. Furthermore, those who complete the course are provided with an additional USD 10,000 a year.
The latest addition to Amazon’s extensive coaching manual — User Experience Design and Research Apprenticeship is a one-year program with on-the-job training across different verticals: Prime Video, Alexa, and Amazon Fashion, just to name a few. With hands-on experience on the aforementioned products and services, employees can help enhance customer experiences.
All in all, Amazon’s Upskilling initiative is a much-needed reskilling initiative to retain employees amidst the ongoing pandemic. To close this reskilling example of Amazon, here’s an excerpt from their press release,
“We think it’s important to invest in our employees, and to help them gain new skills and create more professional options for themselves,” said Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of Human Resources.
IBM’s collaboration with global organizations to reskill and connect with real-world opportunities
IBM spearheads the reskilling initiative with a partnership comprising 30 global organizations, including governments, colleges, non-profits, and employment agencies.
The collaboration that spans 12 countries will leverage IBM’s online learning program, ‘SkillsBuild.’ The program is helping job-seekers, predominantly the underserved populations, become job-ready with a combination of skills, badges, and credentials relevant to the market.
In addition, IBM is also working with Manpower Group, a recruitment and staffing company, to connect these job seekers to real career opportunities. This collaboration envisages securing 7,000 jobs across different industries.
Verizon’s reskilling pilot program with colleges
Earlier this year, Verizon in collaboration with non-profit organizations Generation USA, and JFF announced a partnership with colleges for a reskilling program. This partnership is part of Verizon’s reskilling program — Citizen Verizon, the telecommunication giant’s responsible business plan for economic, environmental, and social advancement.
This collaboration offers free online reskilling training through colleges. The pilot program aims to prepare at least half a million individuals for in-demand technical jobs by 2030.
Jobs for the Future (JFF), the non-profit organization responsible for creating scalable solutions, is leading the program, and is expecting to expand to 15 colleges by 2022.
Microsoft’s aim to empower the healthcare industry through cloud services
The recently launched initiative ‘Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare’ works with healthcare organizations to improve patient engagement and interventions. The program aims to alleviate the overwhelming challenges organizations face across the globe.
This initiative simplifies treatment experience by integrating data across clinical systems, apps, and electronic health records. Microsoft’s new initiative will leverage the power of Microsoft Azure, Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and Microsoft 365 to transform the healthcare journey.
In order to streamline the healthcare experience, this newly launched initiative is now investing in cloud solutions architects.
Typically, if you have a talent pool of DevOps engineers, they can be easily reskilled to fill this gap. DevOps fill the gap by obtaining the required skills in machine learning, artificial intelligence, cloud and hybrid infrastructures, architecture designs and migrations, and technology management.
Using Draup’s Reskilling Navigator, you can see that it is easy to reskill to this role as it shares insights and the skill sets required for a smoother transition. From relevant roles to courses and certifications, the platform presents essential data required to bridge the skills gap. Reskill Navigator also presents optimal soft competencies necessary to succeed in the new role.
Such level of talent data from modern talent intelligence platforms is helping talent stakeholders make data-backed decisions on crucial talent requirements.
Companies are investing both time and money to groom their current workforce to become future-ready. Talent management teams have often overlooked reskilling, but recent events make this the most imperative thing to do to achieve success. Continuously reskilling the employees will ensure organizations stay ahead of the curve.
Draup for Talent is an AI-powered reskilling platform that identifies and maps an existing list of courses and programs. The platform shares invaluable information, including insights and trends to help retain top talents, reskill the workforce, and recruit top talents.
