5 Proven Methods to Unlock Your Workforce Potential With Proper Upskilling

Learn how to use upskilling to unlock your workforce potential.

Zight | September 10, 2020 | 4 min read time

Article Last Updated: July 30, 2023

5 Proven Methods to Unlock Your Workforce Potential With Proper Upskilling

Upskilling, in the simplest of terms, is providing an employee with the skills to be better at their job. It’s an opportunity to give a worker more knowledge and a chance to give the workplace an upgrade.

But Upskilling isn’t about sending employees off to do things like first aid courses. It relates to teaching employees how to take advantage of the latest tech, and how they can use it to progress.

Ultimately, it’s all about digital transformation. It’s making sure you and your employees are moving towards a more advanced future.

Give your workforce the chance to grow! Upskilling is perfect because it doesn’t only show that you want your business to go further. It also shows your employees that you value them and want them to be happy. Why else would you be investing time and money into them?

A Capgemini and LinkedIn report suggested 54% of organizations have lost out to the competition due to a lack of digital talent in the company. The same report revealed that 29% of employees believe their skill set is already redundant – or soon will be.

You do not want to fall behind in the digital economy and lose out on the changing customer dynamic. Ensuring employees advance in tech will ensure advances in the digital market, too.

Here are five ways you can use upskilling to unlock your workforce’s potential.

Change the Culture

Put more faith in your employees and change their working culture.

You may have heard the words ‘agile work environment’ a lot in the modern working world. Agile is a word often associated with those working in an IT and software environment. But what being agile really means is allowing employees to work in a freer and more flexible way.

Let people work from home more. Give people flexible working hours. Make a space where people can talk about their strengths and weaknesses. Make it so that they can approach management and say they would like more training in a certain area. Then, give them the capability to upskill at distance, maybe even in their own time.

It’s no longer essential for people to be in the physical office. And management no longer sits in their corner office on the top floor. Today, we can have a friendly chat with the boss in an online video call , whilst sitting in our front rooms. So, it’s never been easier to shake up the workspace and there have never been fewer excuses for not making a change.

By making a cultural change, you show that you value your employees, and let them analyze their talents. This makes them want to learn and put in the work.

In doing this, you will quickly see a change in mood at work. Teleconference conversations will be more engaged. There will be a higher standard of presentations. And people will be better at social interaction both inside and outside of work.

All of this will put your company ahead of the curve.

Keep up with Industry Changes

Today, every industry is transforming and improving through tech. AI no longer only exists in the imagination of movie producers.

Today, tech is everywhere. 72% of telecommunication and media businesses believe AI will have an impact on their products in the next few years, says Forbes.

It’s time to look at your competitors and stay three steps ahead of them. The best way to do this? Upskill, upgrade, and modernize.

For example, communication is key in any job. But nowadays, it’s not simply a case of walking into a person’s office and leaving a note on a sticky pad. In the modern-day, we use internet messenger, talk to customers online, and use video calls to connect.

Upskilling in this area may mean many things.

An example of this is in marketing. In this role, it’s vital to use lead nurturing to develop trust with a customer.

Having the tech skills to communicate through video calls will help reps create a customer connection.

So, upskilling may involve training staff on how to have great sound and vision in online meetings. This makes it easier to talk to colleagues and customers alike.

Either way, you need to keep ahead in the digital game to keep ahead in the business game.

Arming your employees with the skills they need to get to grips with all manner of tech also gives them confidence. It enables them to do more as an employee.

What’s more, if all your employees have tech skills, your company stands out as being forward-thinking and future-proof.

John Allen is the Director of Global SEO at RingCentral, a global UCaaS, VoIP and contact center software provider. He has over 14 years of experience and an extensive background in building and optimizing digital marketing programs. He has written for websites such as Bamboo HR and Hubspot.

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