UPSKILLING: Your Training Plan on SteroidsYour Lifeline for post-COVID19 Business Success

Management consultant, educator and author Peter Drucker, has been quoted as saying “The only skill that will be important in the 21st century is the skill of learning new skills. Everything else will become obsolete over time.”

Certainly, if employers didn’t pay attention to the concept of Retooling (a.k.a Upskilling, Reskilling) before 2020, then COVID-19 has taught many lessons. The world sees the world differently, and so business owners and managers must now consider how to equip and prepare their employees in order to be or become agile and thrive in a post-COVID-19 environment.

Now it’s logical and reasonable that one thing everyone looks at during a crisis (I’d say that a pandemic like COVID-19 is a crisis), is the cost for successful business operation. So, it’s a given that in these times, many organisations take decisions based on what they can afford to do to remain afloat. However, if organisations are to thrive in a post-COVID-19 environment, then this is also a critical time to look ahead and prepare for the future. And the skill of learning new skills is critical for the workforce.

And this is where upskilling (reskilling, retooling) comes in. What is it? Well, it’s basically the term being used currently to say “teaching workers new skills” (Cambridge Dictionary) and it’s the twin to the concept of internal recruitment – using current staff to fill your gaps. It’s been touted by many a professional prior to 2020. But isn’t it amazing how life crises can change our perspective drastically and urgently? So just as the world views masks and hand-washing (wow!) differently in July of 2020, Upskilling has now taken on new relevance and urgency.

Here’s the thing – Business owner/manager (and all titles that are therein encompassed), we are at a time where your business operations – your offerings, your structure, your processes – must pivot in order to be or to remain successful in the post-COVID-19 world. Upskilling is key!

According to Management Consulting giant McKinsey & Company, we ought to picture what we experienced and were forced to do during this time as “a blueprint for the long-term”.

One major aspect of the pivoting process is envisioning what the future would demand of your organisation – it’s products and services. This is absolutely critical and urgent as it leads to another question that needs to be answered now – what changes in operations do I need to lead my organisation through in order to meet these demands? That then leads to – how can I use what I already have to help us pivot?

Ok…so you’re convinced, reskilling is important for organisations to thrive, but post

COVID-19, reskilling is urgent. But then, how do you go about reskilling? Where do you start? Now here are some tips for you.

1. Do NOT axe your training budget. Or if you didn’t have one, now that you are pivoting, create it. If reskilling is a necessity then investing in it is a must.

2. Predict the future – Though this is more difficult in a climate of uncertainty, there are many things that have become clearer in July of 2020, than they were in March 2020. It’ll be self-defeating to do nothing. And so you must act,using what you know (good old SWOT approach) to project what the demands will be in the future and how your organisation can meet those demands. Now because of the shifting climate, you would want to revisit this regularly so that you can remain agile.

3. Skills & Competencies– When you have a picture as to the response you’d need to have, you can then identify the skills and competencies that your staff would need to make the organisational response possible. We’ll expand on this later.

4. Do a Gap analysis – You are now able to identify the competencies that you already have on board. You Know where you would need to go, you can see the competencies you would need to get there, and you have noted those which you already have on hand. Now your gaps are clearly visible – those are the areas that you pay attention to for your upskilling programme.

5. Determine the ‘Who’ – In creating your upskilling programme, determine which employees or teams of employees would need to develop the skills you have identified.

6. Book it – Of course you’d have to pace the reskilling efforts, so you would need a reskilling schedule. Keep in mind that it requires more urgency than any training schedule that you may have had in the past. Your goal is thriving after the pandemic – urgency is key!

For some help as to areas of focus for retraining, think about the fact that the one constant that we can be sure about moving forward, is that of change. Therefore, think of building resilience into your workforce – staff members who are equipped to adapt quickly to change. Again McKinsey & Company is a forerunner here. Based on their suggestions, think:

· Full Digitisation – equip your employees to be able to function in a fully remote world.

· Cognitive Skills – Problem Solving, Creativity and Critical Thinking are needed to respond to Redesign and Innovation

· Social and Emotional skills – Necessary for employees to be able to function remotely while still professional relationships

· Adaptability and Resilience – With employees gaining more control of their time and space, Self-care, time management, mental health and wellness need to be actively developed.

The top 5 skills that these concepts translate to are

o Critical thinking and decision making

o Leadership and Managing Others

o Advanced data-Analysis and Mathematical skills

o Project Management

o Adaptability and continuous learning

Upskilling or Retooling requires a different mindset than accomplishing your regular training plan – it requires wise urgency. The process may seem overwhelming at the beginning, however, to avoid it will be to choose to become irrelevant and stagnant in an ever-changing world. So, pick a starting point and jump in.

When you consider that a Reskilling plan is critical for your business’ survival, you’ll see the need to put it on steroids – invest generously and approach urgently!