Upskilling skills

 Upskilling skills in all walks of life

The talk of the town is upskilling your workforce to meet tomorrow. Whether it be doctors, bankers, or even the Police force.

The start of the recession might also be the final straw in a long line of difficulties this year has ushered in for individuals. We are going through tough challenges, in fact compounded challenges. It is not just one thing for a lot of people, it’s a snowball effect.

We are seeing the impact of people unable with coping methods. We see the threshold of tolerance, excessive drinking, excessive binge eating at home. We hear of a five-fold increase in calls for all forms of help since end of March 2020.

We also know that the world of work has changed beyond recognition. Job roles, working patterns, working styles and even business strategies all continuing to change rapidly and continuously, as such businesses face one of the biggest challenges of our time, keeping people’s skills in sync with the volatility of work.

Upskilling is considered by some as one answer. Firms which invest in advancing upskilling strategies convey a message, create a higher employee engagement, do a better job of attracting and retraining talent. Some of them are accelerating digital transformation, are innovating faster and react to new market opportunities much faster.                                             

How can you identify future work skills?

Let us suppose your business needs to focus on say “brand strategy,” that in itself becomes a critical skill.

Of course, the skills identified will vary from business to business, service to service, by role and career aspiration.

But employees who are excited in learning new skills, are sure to build a stronger company culture as well as remain in the company and useful to the company longer.

There are ways to find this out. First, you need to assess the skills, establish a minimum standard of current skills and capabilities, then focus on the future skills you have identified as critical to create a dynamic talent strategy. 

Of course, we cannot predict the future. But we have some tools to do just that. For this assessment you need a Skills Inventory, Skills Ratings, Skills Progression, Skills Gaps.

The trick is in an Upskilling strategy which will impart business priorities and a Plan of Action and setting targets.

What is the need of the hour, what do we need next month, next year, next three years or the next decade? With this baseline, many firms now plan to help determine how the business will go about the future skills it needs to fill the gaps.

It is also realistic as employees will only be able to focus on gaining a couple of skills at any one time.

How do people learn new skills?

We are told people learn best when multiple learning methods are blended. Some of these multiple learning technics are as follows:

1.    Online and self-directed method. Perhaps, it is a trial and error method, seeking to learn through self-taught classes, articles, podcasts, webinars, etc.

2.    Team based learning, given by the company.

3.    Peer to Peer learning, where employees seek help and advice from their co-workers to learn.

4.    On the Job-development, a clear case of this is “Stretch Assignments”.

One Example is how the British Police, is going about in my opinion filling skill gaps, all the time coping with its duty and its tight budget.

The days are gone when the Bobby was wearing a hard helmet hat with a baton on the side of his belt and walking the beat. Today, the ride the fast-moving vehicles and officers are called to perform more than one duty.

Today’s world is not only knife crime, but psychology and coping with, the pandemic.

Work is not just about money, it is about a sense of purpose, identity, and structure to life.

Security forces are having to cope with medical anxiety, the impending recession. The looming possibility of losing a job, having to live a hand to mouth existence, of what little one has, will have its own psychological impact.

Police in Britain are being trained not to put handcuffs and fill police cells. They are in the frontline of how to handle this crisis and particularly how to resolve issues, perhaps, without Court intervention. Courts are not in full session; lawyers are in hibernation.

But the law must carry on regardless?

The easing of lockdown will not address any, if not many, of the underlying issues.

The worst is yet to come, say not only pessimists, but also pragmatists.

There is going to be more Brexit madness. The European Union Parliament has drawn a “red line” on letting talks push past end October 2020.

Boris Johnson, in the true Churchillian spirit has also drawn up legislation that will override the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement on Northern Ireland, a move that threatens the collapse of the crunch talks, which the Prime Minister said must be completed by October 15,2020, or Britain will walk away for good.

Staying inside the EU is now a dream, “coronavirus or no Coronavirus”? There is no appetite to revisit the Brexit issue.

The bird has flown out of the cage. A new skillset is in the making in Britain?

Victor Cherubim