No matter the stage of your career, there is always room for further improvement. Continuous learning is a value that is highly regarded by all companies to promote the growth and development of both employees and the business. Upskilling is an integral element to boosting the productivity and efficiency of a work team to achieve their targets. Not only will your business enjoy economic benefits but it will also improve the satisfaction of employees. Here are the reasons why upskilling can improve your team’s productivity.
Multi-skilling
By obtaining more skills under your belt, you will be able to take on more tasks and roles that you never would have previously accomplished before. Rather than employing more employees to fulfil a specialised job that your current employees cannot complete, you can instead retain your employees and train them to be proficient in the skill. Not only is multi-skilling cost-efficient, but this also offers a challenge for complacent employees to extend their skills through job variety. Your team will also optimise their multiple skills by using one technique or skill and incorporating it in another area.
Strengthen core values
Since you are giving an opportunity for your team to grow and develop, you can align and follow through with your core values. Upskilling encourages employees to be better connected with the organisation as they will feel that they are valuable contributions to the company. As your team’s personal beliefs and motivations will be shared with your organisation, this will enable greater productivity and boost output. Upskilling is a common implementation of strong core values that are present in major successful companies. By allowing your team to partake in deciding your company’s core values, they will be able to give an accurate reflection of the organisation’s culture from various perspectives.
Keep updated with trends
Upskilling doesn’t only limit itself to professional training and development but can also include independent research on industry trends. Encourage your team to gain educational insights from keeping up to date with the latest news and trends within the industry as well as technological and external trends. This way, your team can identify relevant trends that can impact or potentially be capitalised to improve the processes or business product. Your team can easily gain valuable information by reading industry articles or journals, listening to podcasts or attending TED talks, conferences or meetups. With fresh insights into examples of great business environments, your team can improve the ability to foster innovation and creativity.
Boost self-esteem
The process of upskilling gives benefits to the employees themselves, increasing job satisfaction and self-esteem. As your team will have a higher knowledge and proficiency in a greater number of areas, they will have increased confidence to take on any task efficiently. This way, your team will consequently increase their levels of motivation and commitment to the organisation, regarding themselves as ‘valuable’ employees. Upskilling will ultimately result in higher levels of productivity through increased capabilities as well as motivation.
Employee retention
As evident in most industries, there are dynamic changes in job roles and the functions of an organisation. With every new technological and digital trend, there will be a shift in the way a role can be performed. It is critical to upskill your employees to easily adapt to the dynamic changes and better respond to unexpected circumstances.
Improve communication
Upskilling can improve productivity by enhancing the flow of communication between team members as well as across teams and levels. As upskilled employees have greater self-esteem which increases their employee morale, they will be more confident to voice their ideas and concerns. Your team will be more encouraged to ask questions as well as to seek higher levels of task difficulties that are challenging yet rewarding. You can upskill employees through developing mentoring or support programs for employees, not only learn skills within the mentor relationship but also communicate and foster ideas. You can also create communication development programs to upskill employees to communicate clearly, concisely and effectively across various channels and under different levels of pressure.
At all levels of the organisation, employees should be focused on improving their skills and overall knowledge. It is also critical to invest in upskilling to boost productivity and promote ongoing development and growth. What reason will you wish to benefit from as a result of upskilling your team?
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