How to Upskill Your Workforce the Smart Way in 2017

Upskilling your workforce can bring many benefits to both you and your business. By training them and helping them improve their skills, you are providing them with an opportunity to climb up the corporate ladder, which is why upskilling is the most powerful incentive you can give to your employees.

The most important reason for up-skilling your workforce is employee retention because, if you don’t invest in your employees and provide them with opportunities to grow, they will eventually leave your organization and look for another one where they can reach their full potential.

If you conduct upskilling training and teach people new skills, you will increase their morale and their productivity, which will bring great benefits to your overall business. However, you need to do it the smart way in order for it to actually be effective, so take a look at the best methods to upskill your workforce in 2017.

On-the-Job Training

On-the-job training can be very effective, as it is a method of giving direct instructions that your employees can immediately put into practice. This method of training enables your employees to quickly and effectively learn many new skills that they need in order to complete their daily tasks, and the most important thing is that they will retain knowledge much faster when they immediately practice their newly learned skills.

This method of training requires you to monitor your employees, so you should have a senior to work alongside your trainees and help them improve their skills efficiently and effectively. This is quite similar to a mentorship program, except it brings much better and faster results, as your employees are actually on-the-job and they learn in real-life situations. All they are given are more responsibilities.

However, in order for on-the-job training to be truly effective, you should decide on the best time to conduct it every day, or every few days, so that it doesn’t make your employees lose their focus when working on their daily tasks.

For instance, you can conduct it at the beginning of a workday, when everyone is fresh and can retain knowledge quickly and easily. Take 10-15 minutes a day to teach your workforce new skills, and you can be sure that it will pay off for the long haul.

Classroom Training

Classroom training remains one of the most common methods of employee training since it really is one of the most effective ones. You can have a senior or a team of seniors teach your workforce new skills or even hire a professional to conduct the training. Either way, your employees will be able to learn everything they need to know in order to become highly-skilled, as they will be able to communicate with one another and share new ideas.

Training in a classroom setting allows for better communication and collaboration, as trainers and trainees can brainstorm ideas and significantly speed up the upskilling process. However, this method of training shouldn’t take too much time from your employees’ daily tasks, which is why it would be smart to combine classroom training with on-the-job training, especially because the latter will enable them to put their knowledge into practice immediately.

Online Courses

Online courses are becoming more and more popular when it comes to corporate training, since not only are a number of them completely free of charge (and those that are not free are still very cost-effective), but they also allow employees to learn at their own pace. They can sit comfortably at home or at a location of their choice and acquire the knowledge they need in order to become better at their job, which is precisely why you should either find or create online courses for upskilling training.

While face-to-face teaching clearly has its advantages, not everyone has the same learning style, so many of your employees may prefer online learning. Again, the smart way would be to create a mix of different training methods, so that each and every one of your employees can effectively learn and reach their full potential. Therefore, you can provide them with an online course, but also take the time to teach them something on-the-job, as you will reap many more benefits that way.

Virtual Classroom Training

Virtual classroom training is becoming very popular nowadays, especially with global companies that have employees scattered across the world. It is effective, even with small businesses with the entire workforce in one location because, just with online courses, it provides employees with incredible convenience to learn from home.

Upskilling your workforce in a virtual classroom setting can engage your employees and help them learn much faster, since not only can they collaborate and learn together, but they can also take quizzes and polls, as well as watch interactive videos that will simulate real-life situations.

What’s more, you can keep track of their learning progress, as you can view detailed and insightful reports and analytics, which will enable you to address their strengths and weaknesses and help them considerably improve their skills.

In order to conduct this method of upskilling training, you need to have a good corporate LMS that will help you implement the program and assess your workforce. It will help you create, manage and deliver your eLearning content, and your employees will be able to access it anywhere they are and anytime they want.

Summing up

Since up-skilling your workforce can bring you plenty of benefits, from saving your organization a lot of money to motivating your employees and increasing their productivity, to name just a few, you should definitely start working on the best methods to conduct it. The aforementioned ones are the most effective ones to start with but make sure you combine them since that is the smartest way to create a successful workforce that will take your business to a whole new level.
Author Bio : Kamy Anderson is an ed-tech enthusiast with a passion for writing on emerging technologies in the areas of corporate training and education. He is an expert in learning management system & elearning authoring tools – currently associated with ProProfs.