Digital Transformation and Technological Innovation is driving employee upskilling and has forced organizations to address skill gaps in their existing workforce and create an environment of continuous learning that can boost productivity, to remain competitive.

There is an increasing demand for skilled employees, across industry domains like Education, Manufacturing, Retail, and Healthcare.

The Frontline employees (popularly called as the Knowledge Workers) are a company’s greatest intangible asset that keeps organizations running as they are the face of the company who deal directly with the customers. Frontline Workforce performance can hamper the goals of the organization.

Mostly, all the Organizations need both upskilling and reskilling practices to improve their workforce skills and remain competitive from an existential stand point.

The digital skill gap is being driven by several inter-related factors including the following:

• The aging and retirement of the current “baby-boomers” generation are creating open positions that are harder to fill (due to limited industry experience).
• Rapid and enhanced digitalization is caused by disrupted innovative technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Natural Learning Processing (NLP), Cloud Computing, and Robotics.

Upskilling:

Upskilling is generally the practice of upgrading existing workforce skills to the next level. This could mean acquiring new competencies like technology or team-building skills that are necessary and essential for today’s business environment, in order to remain competitive and perform better.

Upskilling focuses on enabling employees to become more competent at their current (existing) job or position.

Example:

An experienced Sales Personnel is trained and made to learn about digital marketing tools and technologies.

Reskilling:

Reskilling is all about the existing employees learning completely new skills or getting trained for a different job within the organization.

Example:

An existing Software Testing Engineer is required to be reskilled in software development tools for switching to a better and enhanced career option in choosing from Application Development or Programming.

Need for Employers to Upskill:

Upskilling employees is the realistic way of:

1. staying competitive in a rapidly changing business environment and
2. maintaining organizations’ existing frontline workforce of creative and motivated employees who are continuously looking to improve their job skills, for better performance and enhanced career development.

For Employers (Organizations), it is extremely vital to upskill or reskill their existing employees to retain and save the enormous costs of hiring new ones.

Benefits of Upskilling for Employers (Organizations/Corporations):

a) Attracts New Recruits:

• Upskilling training programs mean progressive and better growth areas for the existing employees.

Employers will have an extended talent pool to choose from as the existing employees become brand ambassadors to recommend the current employer due to upskilling programs, whenever there is a requisite to increase the team rises.

b) Improves Workforce Retention:

• Employers not only increase employee skills but also convey that they are interested in taking their skills to the next level.

This assists in reducing employee turnover, as employees would be engaging with companies that are focused on their long-term development.

c) Boosts End-Customer Satisfaction:

• Upskilling enables existing employees to provide improved customer solutions and recommendations, which ultimately ensures better customer satisfaction.
• This means more customer engagement, which translates into more sales and hence revenue generation.

Benefits of Upskilling for Employees:

a) Improves Confidence:

• According to a report from the World Economic Forum, over 80% of Employees who have undertaken upskilling training, report that it has improved their confidence in performing their daily work.
• Hence improved work productivity along with the confidence of sharing great ideas and suggestions among team members and peers.

b)  Boost Individual Career Prospects:

• Only 7% of the workforce undertake training that is not relevant to their job (as per the WEF report).
• Most of the employees consider job training as the medium to advance their career prospects and individual skills. Upskilling provides employees the benefit of gaining knowledge that is relevant for their careers.

c) Increase Team Management Skills:

• Upskilling not only works for fresh recruits but also for experienced Professionals and Team Managers.
• Upskilled Managers can guide their teams better to mentor existing team members to develop leadership skills for the future workforce.

Conclusion:

Skills are changing at a fast pace with new technological advancements in different industries. The widening skill gaps of knowledge workers need real-time attention to ensure breakthrough performance in any circumstances, at all times.

An LXP such as mPowerO, can help you in end-to-end skill development, from identifying the right skills to building them while providing an impactful learning experience.

Frontline workers need a unique training/learning solution that blends in with their unique requirements. For instance, as the distributed workforce do not have time to learn, they need an OJT platform that is mobile-friendly as they are always on-the-go.

Upskilling Frontline workforce is crucial to get the most out of this valuable resource. By creating a culture of continuous learning through on-the-job training for the frontline staff via m-Learning with LXP tool from mPowerO, a frontline workforce enablement solution, can help train the frontline and take them to the desired next level.

mPowerO platform can assist in managing the complete lifecycle of a frontline, from onboarding to moving them up the career ladder by empowering them with the right skills and knowledge, with an improved performance.

with the right mix of the latest technology via an automated skilling platform creates uninterrupted learning/training and seamlessness in a hybrid work model/environment, thus promoting impactful learning experiences.

An LXP can be a definitive helping hand in providing impactful personalized learning/training experiences in order for the employees to be successful and also the organization.

An LXP powered by the latest AI could further keep up the Frontline workforce up-to-date through micro-learning content merged with AI content recommendations along with an advanced data analytics platform to showcase the outcomes for better learning/training outcomes and learning/training experiences.

For upskilling Your Frontline workforce, mPowerO provides continuous support and is an end-to-end offering to Online Learning Platforms/Solutions, Digital Publishing Solutions, Upskilling/ReSkilling and Skilling training opportunities for medium to large companies.

mPowerO has evolved from being an Online Learning Solution (LMS) to serving as LXP in order to accommodate larger targeted audiences for educational/publishing and skilling requirements of various medium to large organizations/enterprises.

Talk to our expert team members for a deeper understanding and more related information.

Reach out via email at info@mpowero.com or visit us at https://www.mpowero.com/ for more information.

Happy to Help!