Future-Proof Your Tech Workers

Your company may be doing great now, with a stable customer base, high sales, a positive reputation, and ongoing innovation. But what about next year? Five years from now? Ten? Twenty? Are you set up to continue your success into the future? And if so, what will it take to make it happen? Businesses must think ahead to ensure they will have the resources they need in the coming years, including space, equipment, leadership, and qualified workers. Thinking ahead and taking steps to ensure future achievements is known as future-proofing.

The worker component of this process is especially critical, given that ongoing technological advancements will take over many low-level tasks, meaning highly skilled workers will be needed to perform higher-level functions. Companies that have few highly skilled workers need to think about how they will employ more of them. Certainly, there are traditional ways of doing so, such as posting job openings and performing recruitment activities. But these methods may not be enough.

Upskilling and reskilling workers may be the answer. These processes refer to training current workers to perform more high-level tasks within their current role or training them to perform tasks within a new role. A recent Forbes Human Resources Council post provides an example of reskilling: “A market research analyst who wants to transition to a data science career probably has the required basic research skills but will need training in other areas.”

The process refers to both tech workers and those in other departments who want to transition into tech roles. In the following sections, we explore considerations for using upskilling and reskilling to future-proof your workers. Let’s start with exactly how upskilling and reskilling can help.

Why Upskilling and Reskilling Are Important

While few companies expect to start an extensive training program as part of their offerings, many are being forced to do so out of necessity. The Forbes Human Resources Council post mentioned above stated that around 83% of HR professionals say that “they have difficulty finding qualified candidates for critical job roles.” For many, the reason is that “applicants lack the required job skills.” So, in some cases, providing extensive training may be the only way to get qualified workers.

Often, a business needs employees to not just be able to perform a certain task but to be able to perform it in certain ways that are specific to the company’s operations. Learning proprietary processes may require education beyond what is taught at schools, universities, or trade colleges. These companies may need to create a structured way to impart such learning above and beyond on-the-job training.

Finally, more companies are coming to realize that they need essential elements like space, equipment, and stakeholder support. But their true key to success is their employees, who not only perform needed tasks but also adapt, innovate, and promote the companies they work for. Therefore, workers can make the difference between an organization’s failure and success. Training valued workers, which demonstrates employer loyalty, is one way to ensure they stick around.

The following video emphasizes the importance of upskilling and reskilling:

Set Company Goals

The first step in determining whether a training program is needed and, if so, what it should look like is setting future goals. According to a recent article posted on the career site Indeed, “Business goals are an essential part of establishing priorities and setting your company up for success over a set period of time. Taking the time to set goals for your business and create individual objectives to help you reach each goal can greatly increase your ability to achieve those goals.” Companies can use the following steps to set future goals:

1. Start with the company’s current mission and values statements.

Based on that information, what is the logical extension of what the company is doing now? For example, if the company’s mission is to bring families closer together through a multichannel communication application, what might need to be added to the service in the future? Or what additional services could the company provide?

2. Consider external factors.

Such as changing cultural standards, shifting demographics, political trends, and technological advancements. For example, advanced AI-based features that are quickly gaining in popularity across business verticals could bring a new level of connection to users of the communication application.

3. Set goals to accomplish in upcoming years.

Use the information gathered in steps 1 and 2 to for this. Prioritize these goals into first, second, and third tiers based on their importance in supporting the company’s mission or moving the business forward.

4. Break down long-term goals into shorter-term objectives.

For example, a three-year goal might be to integrate an AI assistant throughout the application. Shorter-term objectives could include creating AI components for certain parts of the application to understand what works and what doesn’t or surveying customers to learn if an AI assistant would be helpful to them.

5. Create a plan that includes all the goals and objectives.

The plan should include methods for measuring success. That is, how will you know when you’ve accomplished an objective or a goal? It should also include team members responsible for each objective and timelines for when you would like to have them completed.

Identify Future Needs and Skill Gaps

Based on the needs and objectives developed as described in the previous section, determine whether you have people with the needed skills to achieve them. For example, if you are building an entirely new AI component into your application, do you have workers with AI expertise? Do you have software engineers with the necessary skills on board? Do you have managers capable of overseeing this project?

If the answer to any of the above questions is no, then think about how you might acquire that talent. Consider standard approaches like posting job openings and recruiting at local schools. If you don’t think those options will result in gaining the needed skills for your plans, you have a case for creating a training program to provide reskilling and/or upskilling for interested employees.

Create an Upskilling / Reskilling Culture

Before you take the first steps to create upskilling and reskilling training programs, think about how this move will impact your company’s culture. It may have a positive impact that you should try to take advantage of. Gallup writes, “Culture is a force multiplier for the outcomes that matter most to you – and when properly harnessed, it becomes a powerful differentiator for your organization.” Consider taking the following steps:

• Evaluate your current culture. Survey employees to find out how they experience the company currently. You might find out they view the culture as being “friendly,” “positive,” and “supportive” or as having less positive qualities such as “demanding,” “scattered,” or “unresponsive.”
• Compare survey results with how you want the culture to be perceived and include qualities the new training program will add, such as “helpful,” “forward-thinking,” and “trustworthy.”
• Remember that changing company culture is less about what you say and more about what you do. Use the words you want to define your culture and find concrete ways to make them real. For example, if you want the company to be viewed by employees as “inclusive,” start thinking about programs for segments of the workforce, such as women or people of color, who might feel that they don’t fit in.
• Include the qualities that will come from the new training initiative and determine concrete ways to include them. For example, to ensure the program is perceived as “helpful,” make training available to anyone who wants it and ensure that participation results in gaining the intended skills.
• Bake notions of upskilling and reskilling into all company communications. For example, list it as an employee benefit on the company’s public-facing website, mention it as a career option in employee reviews, send out newsletters that explain it in detail, and create resources for accessing it on the company’s intranet.

Create Training Programs

With all the previous steps taken, you’re now ready to create a training program that will upskill and reskill workers with the intention of making them an important part of your company’s future. After determining the skill sets needed, as described above, consider taking the following steps:

• Determine who will serve as instructors. In the example above, we identified AI expertise as a skill that might be needed by a company looking to incorporate an AI assistant into its application. But what if this is an entirely new skill to your company and no one there has the knowledge to train others? You’ll have to look for an outside source or even outsource this training to a local school or an online learning site.
• Determine what form the instruction will take. Today, learning can take place in many forms, including live classes, pre-recorded training videos, self-guided programs, or external workshops or seminars. Determine which of these options, or others, are most practical and start there.
  Then expand to different forms of training for those who learn in different ways, such as hands-on opportunities for experiential learners. Also include options for those with different abilities, such as auditory or visual limitations or neurodivergence. Create a curriculum to incorporate all these considerations.
• Invite employees to participate. Once you have a program in place, communication is key for ensuring all those who want to participate can. Initial messaging about the program should include why it has been implemented, who is eligible to participate, what specific skills will be taught, and what employees can expect after they have participated.
• Provide support. Listen to initial feedback from employees, such as special circumstances that might keep them from participating. For example, if training takes place after hours, some workers might have family obligations that prevent them from being available at those times.
• Monitoring progress is important, especially when the program is new. Doing so will help you know what’s working and what isn’t, so you can determine if anything should be changed. Use tools like metrics, assessments, and participant feedback to establish program success.
• Encourage continuous learning. Once an employee has learned a particular skill set, encourage them to take advantage of other learning programs, even if they don’t plan to use them in their current or next position. This encouragement provides a supportive environment in which workers can perform at their best, both professionally and personally.

Fill Jobs From Within

Now that you have a highly skilled workforce trained in exactly the skills you need them to perform — in the ways you need them performed — you can begin to shift your hiring process and work toward filling the jobs you need filling to achieve your goals. Having the necessary skills available internally facilitates focusing on hiring from within.

In addition to knowing you have fully trained candidates available, hiring internal candidates for open positions comes with numerous benefits:

• A briefer training period, since internal employees already know generally how things are done. This benefit includes another one: reduced training costs.
• Greater efficiency and lowered costs since HR professionals will spend less time and effort on the recruiting process.
• Less risk since you already know how the person you’re hiring behaves as an employee.
• A more positive company culture based on employees knowing that the business is actively working toward giving them additional professional opportunities.

The notion of an employee working their entire career with one company may seem outdated. But, if a company can provide enough professional opportunities to create a career, it’s not unthinkable that it could happen in today’s business environment. Companies are smart to nurture at least the possibility for workers to thrive from their first position until they retire. That’s because it costs much more to recruit, onboard, train, and employ workers than to simply promote them from within.

To create the kind of environment in which entire careers can be built, businesses must understand that not every worker wants to or can pursue one career path. The common idea of someone “climbing the corporate ladder” may not suit or appeal to every team member. Therefore, companies must provide alternative options, which is one of the benefits of reskilling. Workers can shift to entirely different roles in lateral moves while still feeling challenged and rewarded.

Another Indeed article recommends using seven steps to building an internal hiring process:

1. Design an internal hiring process policy. It might include steps for the internal recruitment process, a list of roles for hiring participants, communication rules, and guidelines for fairness.
2. Develop a job posting system. The system will be used to publicize open positions. It might include an internal job board, a newsletter, or other communication methods.
3. Post a customized job description. Job descriptions targeted at internal candidates can be more specific about job duties and describe elements that outside applicants might not understand.
4. Encourage employees to apply. Managers should be tasked with promoting new positions to qualified team members and supporting them throughout the application process.
5. Screen employees carefully. Though an internal candidate might be more of a known quantity, they should still be as thoroughly vetted as an external applicant would be.
6. Conduct fair interviews. Make the internal review process fair and transparent. If needed, consider using outside interviewers to prevent bias.
7. Give constructive feedback. If an internal candidate doesn’t get hired, they will still be working for you. So, offer them constructive feedback on their application performance and encourage them to apply for other roles that might be a better fit.

The Future Is Now

Many business leaders don’t look too far ahead because they prioritize business goals like meeting certain revenue and profit targets, which are often short-term endeavors. Such goals are especially important for public companies whose investors expect this approach. While the wisdom of this method can be debated, the fact of the matter is that even companies with a more long-term vision must shift to a somewhat more shortsighted strategy due to the rapidly shifting technology environment.

Consider a company that wants to initiate a 10-year plan for developing robots that can perform tasks like grocery shopping. By choosing a 10-year timeline, this operation is probably going to be way behind its competitors. The underlying technology is already here, and savvy companies are going to deploy it in more like five or even two to three years.

So, companies that have big ideas must start thinking now about how they will implement them, and future-proofing their workers is one of the most critical ways to do it. Upskilling and reskilling tech workers is highly important for companies that want to reach futuristic goals within the next few years. By future-proofing tech workers, business leaders are future-proofing their companies as a whole.