The stability of the company depends on its employees because it is thanks to their commitment and diligence, that it works, delivers services and products of the highest quality to customers. Building the relationship between the company and the customer is extremely important and the best way to achieve this is to have employees with a professional approach and highest qualifications.

The digital era and process automation are changing the way people do their jobs and forcing them to develop new skills. It also raises the need to find a solution for those employed in declining industries, whose competencies are no longer desirable on the labour market, but who are looking for a new career path for themselves. Training programmes based on retraining and upskilling of candidates are the answer to the problems connected with the labour market and the shortage of employees with appropriate qualifications. The gap between the absorption of new technologies and the skills of employees strongly influences the decrease in productivity and inefficiency. That is why it is so important to make every effort in this regard.

Upskilling or reskilling – 2 ways to success

There are two basic paths to the development of both the company and its employees. Upskilling and reskilling are very similar practices but they differ from each other by one fundamental element.

Upskilling refers to the improvement of employee’s qualifications in the scope of already performed duties. This action can be performed either by the company or by the employee itself, who would like to acquire additional skills to obtain a higher salary or promotion. Upskilling can be based, for example, on training a marketing specialist to take up a managerial position and manage an IT team.

Reskilling is a process of conversion of an employee into another job without the need to leave the company. This action involves changing the set of skills and allows for changing the position from one to another. Reskilling is usually conducted by a company that takes care of its trusted employees and in case of closing a particular team or department, instead of dismissing good and valuable employees, it performs a reskilling and transfers them to other positions in another department but still in the same company.

Both upskilling and reskilling is an extremely important process because, among other things, certain professions are no longer in existence or are to some extent replaced by machines or automated. Therefore, it is worth finding a place in the company for loyal, dedicated employees so that they can continue to be part of the organisation.

These two processes also have a positive impact on the increasingly frequent recruitment problems. There is a shortage of people who are able to work in the IT industry, which every year needs more and more specialised employees. These factors affect the fact that employers more frequently prefer to invest in the training of existing, already proven employees rather than spend additional funds to find new employees without a guarantee that they will integrate with the company.

Great benefits of employee upskilling

There are countless benefits from upskilling and retraining employees. It is worth starting from mentioning that while taking care of your employees you also take care of your own business because if employees feel that you focus on their development, they do not want to give up work in a place that gives them opportunities to improve their knowledge and provide them with promotion opportunities.

At this point, it should also be mentioned that by training your employees, you get them out of the routine, and thus reduce the chances of burnout and failure to contribute to their duties. Also, the employer’s involvement in the development of the employees creates a greater sense of belonging and community with the team as well as the company, which positively affects their work.

It should not be forgotten that successful companies are always looking for talents and it is much easier to acquire them if potential employees know that the company will take care of their development and instead of dismissing them due to the automation of a specific position will retrain them for new ones in order to be able to keep a trusted team of employees.

Moreover, your customers will appreciate a professional employee who has been working with them for years, rather than a change of staff who will not fully understand their demands.

The crucial importance of development in the IT industry

The IT industry is distinguished from other industries by the fact that the development and increase of knowledge, as well as continuous improvement of qualifications, is an inseparable element of the growth and the key factor of the company’s existence. The industry needs skilled employees and this needs increase year by year. Due to the rapid development of the IT sector, it is important to upskill employees at the lower positions and retrain those who are working in a different profession and want to improve their quality of life and career opportunities.

In July 2019, a PwC survey was conducted on a total of 22098 people from 11 countries, 77% of whom said they attended courses and training to better understand new technologies and only 24% of them were concerned that they might not be competent to do their job in the future. This gives an idea of how important it is to train employees and how these courses should be tailored to the particular target group.

Therefore, it is not only worthwhile to educate and retrain your employees constantly taking care of their development, but also to carefully choose the training offer for them designed to match your expectations to the options offered on the market.

The world’s biggest companies invest huge financial resources in upskilling their employees because they are well aware of the fact that nowadays it is worth focusing on development due to fact the human factor is an extremely important element of a perfectly functioning company. This is particularly important if it concerns the IT industry. Qualified employees are worth their weight in gold and providing them with convenient working conditions and development significantly affects not only their effectiveness and engagement but also the entire company.