The Importance of Skilling in Workforce Training
The World Economic Forum predicts that more than half the global workforce will need new skills in the next five years. With reduced staff in stores due to current furloughs and capacity limits, the remaining employees are taking on roles and responsibilities that they have never taken before. This makes cross-training skills a critical need for retailers hoping to drive stability deliver long-term ROI.
A few months ago, McKinsey estimated that 87 percent of organizations are handling or expect to handle a skill shortage in their organization. That’s because current workforce training standards lack a healthy balance between Learning and Skilling. Learning emphasizes knowledge retention and information gathering. Skilling prioritizes transferring knowledge in order to lead to a desired result or increase certain job behaviors.
In today’s retail landscape, Skilling is most important. Here are the benefits of centering Skilling in your training.
Higher Employee Loyalty
According to LinkedIn’s 2018 Workforce Learning Report, 93 percent of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their careers. Individualized development is no longer an optional perk of a job, nor is it a luxury offered to the newest and coolest companies. Its expected by today’s workforce and imperative to a company’s bottom line.
To employees, investing in quality training and development of skills signals that they are respected, cared for, and that their boss actively participates in their success. A quality training and development program can make employment during an uncertain time feel more certain.
Employees want learning tailored to their day-to-day needs, not just learning that fulfills HR’s training goals. They want to know that what they are spending their time on will increase the likelihood that they will move up in the company and that what they are learning can be applied immediately for ROI.
Cross-training is the most effective way to retain the employees you already have. It increases their applied skill knowledge and affirms their commitment to the company, giving them new opportunities to cost-effectively deliver for their local communities.
Within-Budget Spend
Many LMS programs still center their efforts on comprehensive online training that doesn’t tie the learning back to real work experiences and results. Because there is not an emphasis on Skilling, employees sit through course completion exercises just to check a box and confirm that the training occurred.
Only 20 percent of workers are confident they have the skills they need for the future. Most organizations are behind on skills initiatives, and the workforce is not waiting around. In retail, a ferocious labor market with high turnover and high attrition limits the impact of a new LMS. In current times, most retailers can’t afford to spend months on LMS implementations, only to have to retrain 10-15 percent of their staff.
Classroom learning and online curriculums are a huge part of organization’s budget spend, but they present just a fraction of how workers, managers, and executives actually build needed skills. In a climate where companies have fewer staff and reduced budgets, what’s missing is a way to cross-train employees on multiple skills that they need today.
Outdated training programs and strategies can lead to frustration no matter where your employees work. When you have employees spread out over an entire state or country, it’s imperative to involve them and upskill them in a way that delivers immediate, measurable results.
To learn more about how Nextenture can help you quickly drive an uptick in skilling and maximize your workforce training without any of the inherent costs in a typical LMS, check out our mobile training solution, KPI Coach, or request a meeting with Nextenture consultant here.
