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It is not an exaggeration to say that COVID-19 has pushed technology adoption to the tipping point. Companies that were inching their way towards implementing organization-wide digital initiatives have now found the motivation to pursue digital transformation vigorously.
In a matter of months, companies have adopted more digital initiatives than they did in the years leading up to the pandemic outbreak. In other words, COVID-19 has thrown a daunting yet pertinent challenge to companies and has expedited the digital transformation timeline for all, irrespective of their current capabilities.
As of June 2021, companies are three times more likely to respond that over 70% of their customer interactions are exclusively online.
There is simply no other choice other than to embrace digital across the value chain. Experts conclude that the digital transformation momentum is highly likely to continue or even accelerate further in the post-pandemic scenario.
However, this race to embrace digital transformation has exposed a crucial flaw – the lack of new-age talent to successfully incorporate emerging technology solutions.
The Talent Crisis – An Unintended Side Effect of Digital Transformation
Draup’s research shows that well over 77% of all job roles and functions are bound to undergo some form of disruption.
One of the main reasons for this is the growing workforce that is out-of-sync with the technological advancements. This is despite the fact that globally, the number of graduates has been increasing every year.
The problem is clear; these new graduates are not adequately skilled or utterly unskilled in the requirements of the new-age digital workforce.
Another side to the story is the existing employee pool that is becoming more redundant by the day.
The half-life of technical skills has halved from 5 to just 2.5 years in the past decade alone! This means that experienced employees and freshers just entering the workforce are being placed on the same level, at least skills-wise.
Of course, keep in mind that experienced employees bring adjacent skillsets that a new-joiner is unlikely to possess. However, in some cases, even these adjacent skillsets cannot save them from becoming redundant due to the sheer leap in use cases & technology paradigms.
As a result, talent stakeholders are turning to upskilling & reskilling to bridge the widening talent gap.
Build a Sustainable Talent Pool with Upskilling & Reskilling
The significance of Upskilling and Reskilling employees has increased manifold, especially in the current volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous business environment. Companies that do not take this time to upskill their employees will soon find themselves in a vulnerable position.
As work from home and remote operations become the new normal, cross-functional expertise and better competencies will determine not just survival for the employees but also their roles.
As we step into this new normal of a hyper-digital world, investing in employee reskilling and upskilling will give companies big returns as well as an edge over their peers.
Moreover, up/reskilling is beneficial to both employers & employees. Below, we have covered some of these benefits at a very high level.
Reskilling benefits for employers:
Reduce training and hiring costs – Reskilling the internal workforce can save the organization more than 22% in talent costs.
Retain company knowledge and improve time to market – This saves them from onboarding new talent and bringing them up to speed on existing projects.
Reskilling is a great tool for internal mobility – It gives employees more options to move into adjacent teams without having to leave the company.
Improve employee morale – More than 60% of employees remark that organization-supported skill upgrade initiatives are crucial to their job satisfaction.
Reskilling benefits for employees:
Keep stable employment (and benefits) – In a volatile job market, an opportunity to continuously up/reskill without leaving your job is a bonus
Encourages upward mobility – Beneficial for ambitious employees who want to move up the career ladder without sacrificing on the connections they have made or have grown attached to the company culture.
Motivates personal growth – Helps employees from future-proofing their career by continuously learning & acquiring new skills, thus increasing job satisfaction & security.
Upskilling and Reskilling Leading the Charge
But are organizations investing enough in their upskilling and reskilling initiatives? And what are the roles that are most likely to become redundant owing to a lack of upskilling/reskilling?
These are some of the burning questions plaguing talent managers today.
These and more such pertinent topics will be discussed at the 2021 virtual edition of Zinnov Confluence – India Chapter, with the theme of Reboot and Reimagine: Winning the Growth Wars.
The conference will look at the winning strategies and approaches adopted by the Indian technology ecosystem to successfully navigate the second wave of disruption across the dimensions of Talent, Technology, Globalization, and Innovation.
Vijay Swaminathan, CEO & Co-Founder of Draup, will add to the talent dimension with his keynote on The Talent Continuum for the Post-pandemic Era: Upskilling and Reskilling Leading the Charge.
In his keynote, Vijay will cover:
- Why cross-functional expertise & newer competencies will determine the survival of the employee
- How investing in employee reskilling & upskilling will give companies big returns as well as an edge over their peers.
- What roles are most likely to become redundant owing to a lack of upskilling/reskilling
- How organizations can invest more in their upskilling and reskilling initiatives
The keynote will also focus on new skills and competencies that will be needed to compete in the new normal, how employees and organizations can identify the gaps in their skillsets, and the different ways in which companies can enable upskilling and reskilling in the remote setup.
Time: Aug 16, 4:35 PM IST to 4:55 PM IST
