The recent pandemic has forced enterprises and their employees to redefine their working model to achieve business sustenance. Overcoming the initial apprehensions of high-pressure work, leaders have realized that the remote working model could be blueprint for a longer period. Post-pandemic business models and redefined operational workflows are expected to disrupt a majority of job roles.
Draup’s research indicates that well over 75% of all job roles and functions are bound to undergo some form of disruption. The war-on-talent has achieved a new peak wherein technology enterprises with major skill dents are hiring a large majority of the available talent pool. Apparently, legacy enterprises going through digital transformation are seen to fall-short in hiring war against the technology players. Reskilling now emerges as a critical tool for these enterprises to attain business continuity and sustenance.
Enterprise leaders that chose the reskilling roadmap to address skill demands are witnessing long-term benefits as compared to the ones that follow hiring practices. Draup’s reskilling cost benefits model estimates that reskilling internal workforce can help organizations save up to 22% in Talent costs. Some of the other organisational benefits of reskilling are:
- Better organisational culture
- Enhances Diversity and inclusivity
- Better stakeholder management
- Reduces cross-functional barriers and triggers innovation
Enterprise leaders are struggling to develop a reskilling framework that can be effectively operationalized. Here are some of the nuances and best practices to build an effective reskilling framework:
Skills identification
As companies decide on strategies that will shore up the future of the business, they are mapping skill pools that are disproportionately affecting them and driving it forward, becomes their next step. To do this, they are quickly shortlisting crucial value drivers and employee groups. Companies understand the exact contributions of these roles to value creation and reimagine how their day-to-day work changes as a result of value shifts.
For example, moving a Call-centre agent to inside sales will have a tremendous impact on the sales team. There are specific skill sets like Lead scoring, sales forecasting and account management that helps a customer support executive to undergo this transition.
Tailored learning journeys
Leaders need a detailed view not only of the core job role transitions that will begin in the next 12 to 18 months but also of those skills each of these groups will need. Enterprises are moving to inside sales/virtual selling as a priority for a competitive advantage. Building a tailored upskilling journey for customer support reps to build their core sales skills while improving their virtual ways of customer interaction becomes the crucial part of the action plan.
Organizational Buy-In:
Organizations are recognizing the need to set up an Executive Leadership committee and Working group committee that can operationalize the reskilling strategy as well as track KPIs. The executive committee is comprised of strategic decision makers who evaluate, acquire & materialize reskilling models on an enterprise level. Working group committee is a team of project and process managers coming together to execute and administer reskilling plans on a resource level.
Testing and iteration:
Successful Reskilling frameworks are the ones that undergoes a cycle of reviews and iterations to achieve betterment. Involving SMEs is vital to evaluate the reskilling modules and enhance the learning journeys. These reskilling models are being evaluated and iterated for long term sustenance rather than just addressing the pandemic challenges. Building an internal institutional learning and evaluating what works and what doesn’t help leaders to apply those lessons during disruptive events in the future.
