Employee Upskilling

In the evolving world of work, upskilling is more than a nice-to-have; it’s an imperative. The world is changing quickly around us. Global trends, market shifts, and rapid advancements in technology are disrupting the ways we work—and show no signs of slowing down. As our work evolves, so too do the skills needed to do that work. 

That’s where employee upskilling can help. When people upskill, they build on their existing skills to deepen their expertise. This has the upside of not just better preparing them with the skills of the future, but building their confidence, too. This is important, because many workers today worry about acquiring the skills needed to be successful tomorrow. 

Many also feel unprepared for what the workplace of the future holds. A Workplace Intelligence study from 2022 found that upskilling is a concern for employees. The survey showed that 78% of workers feel they lack the skills, and 71% are worried about their education holding them back from getting ahead. Furthermore, 70% of respondents expressed feeling unprepared for the evolving workplace.

In response to these trends, employers are increasingly exploring ways to help employees acquire these skills by offering opportunities to upskill and reskill. An employee upskilling program is a win-win proposition for employers and employees alike. These programs allow employees to keep their skills sharp, while employers can ensure their workforce remains competitive and adaptable to market and technology changes. 

Let’s explore what upskilling and reskilling are, their advantages and disadvantages, and why and how to develop a continuous learning plan for your organization.  

What is upskilling and reskilling with examples?

While employee upskilling and reskilling both involve skills acquisition, they aren’t one and the same. Upskilling is the process through which people gain skills and knowledge that deepens their skill set and helps them grow in their current career. Reskilling, in contrast, happens when people gain new skills and knowledge that prepare them to move into a new job or career path. 

To help illustrate the point, consider these upskilling and reskilling examples for employees:

Imagine two grocery store sales associates, Luis and Raquel. They have the same job today, but different long-term ambitions. 

Luis enjoys working for the grocer, which is known for treating employees well and promoting from within. His long-term goal is to one day become a store manager, but he knows he has to work his way up to that position. To start on that path, he trains to become a team lead in his department, which would layer additional responsibilities onto the work he does today. From there, he hopes to move into a department manager role—the next step on the pathway to becoming a store manager. This would be an example of upskilling, because Luis’s goal is to develop his skills and grow within his existing role. 

Raquel, meanwhile, works at the store to help cover her costs while she’s in school, where she’s studying for her bachelor’s degree in elementary education. Once she graduates, she plans to leave the store and find a full-time job as a first- or second-grade teacher. This would be an example of reskilling, because Raquel’s end goal is to move into a completely different job than the one she holds today. 

Initiatives to upskill employees like Luis are often the domain of HR or L&D teams, who are tasked with building and developing a workforce that can support their organization’s strategic goals and needs. So what is the meaning of upskilling employees in HRM? In HRM, upskilling employees refers to the process of identifying skills gaps in the company and then designing programs for employees that address those gaps. 

Why upskilling employees is so important right now?

We live in a rapidly changing world that can be both complex and uncertain. It’s natural, then, that some of this uncertainty can creep into the workplace, causing employees to worry about how to keep their skills competitive in the long term. Half of full-time employees in the U.S. are concerned about gaining the skills they need to advance at their current job.

These concerns drive home the importance of continuous learning in the workplace, which happens when employees have ongoing opportunities to learn new things and develop their skills at work. Employees have different motivations for upskilling. They may do so to improve their future chances of getting a promotion or higher salary, fill a personal skills gap, or grow in confidence in their job—or some combination of all of these. One major upside of this for employers? Over 90% of employees say learning new skills keeps them motivated at work.

Employees are also coming to expect these opportunities from their employers. Most employees (91%) believe employers should be investing in their continued education, according to the 2024 SEI Consumer Survey. Despite this, not all employees do have access to these opportunities. A 2022 Amazon and Workplace Intelligence survey revealed a disconnect between what employees value and what employers provide. While a little over half of employees have access to benefits like tuition assistance (51%), cross-training programs (55%), and networking opportunities (55%), the vast majority (over 80%) consider these benefits to be crucial.

What are the negatives of poorly trained employees?

Poorly trained employees can have serious negative impacts on the organizations for which they work. Employees who lack the proper training to perform their jobs safely and correctly may make mistakes that cost their employers—whether that’s in monetary damages, exposure to legal risk, safety incidents, or reputational harm. 

In many industries and professions, even a “small” mistake by an employee can have an outsized and costly impact on a company’s bottom line and reputation. Many health and safety incidents that happen in U.S. workplaces could have been pre-empted by providing more comprehensive training to employees. 

On top of the potential harms their lack of training can cause to employers, poorly trained employees may also be more likely to leave companies that fail to invest in their training and development. Surveys have found employees value working at places that prioritize their development and allow them to do what they do best. In fact, employees who feel that their skills are not being put to good use in their current job are 10 times more likely to be looking for a new job than those who feel that their skills are being put to good use, according to the 2022 LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report. 

When reskilling employees to move into different roles in the company, employers need to set those employees up for success by providing them with sufficient training and development opportunities. For employers, there are a mix of reskilling advantages and disadvantages. Reskilling can be resource intensive, and doesn’t happen overnight. But its advantages are many: it can help the employer fill skills gaps, retain loyal employees, and remain nimble in the face of change. 

What are the problems with upskilling?

Some employers resist the idea of upskilling, worrying that employees who take advantage of educational or training opportunities will take those skills straight to another employer. While this may be true for a small subset of employees, there’s just as much risk in not offering these opportunities. That’s because many employees—and especially those in younger generations—will consider leaving an employer that’s not actively developing their skills or offering them opportunities to grow. According to a survey conducted by Workplace Intelligence in fall 2022, 74% of Gen Z and Millennial respondents said they are ready to move on from current employment due to subpar skills-building support or a lack of career mobility.

Upskilling has many advantages, but there are some disadvantages of upskilling. For one, employees are busy. Even if they have the desire to invest in skills building, they may not always have the time to do so, especially if that upskilling happens outside of work hours. Family and personal obligations understandably tend to take precedence over studying, and some people simply don’t have the luxury of free time that can be required to pursue ongoing education. 

Another challenge of upskilling is ensuring employees are aware of—and taking advantage of—these benefits. According to business leaders, the most common challenges their organizations experience with its tuition assistance program is that employees do not feel they have enough time to pursue education while working (45%), a lack of metrics to understand how the TA program is performing (39%) and employees lack awareness or information about the TA program (35%).

Despite these challenges, many employers still say upskilling is worth it. Nearly 90% of business leaders surveyed agree there is value in offering employee education benefits.

How to build an effective upskilling program for employees

Building upskilling programs for employees is an excellent way to show you’re invested in their development. These programs aren’t developed overnight, but the benefits they offer are well worth the effort. 

To build an effective program that will suit your organization’s needs, there are a few things you’ll need to do: 

• Identify the skills your organization has today, and the skills it will need tomorrow.
      °    Ask yourself: Where do gaps exist? What skills does your organization need to be ready for the future? 

• Measure employees’ skills to determine where gaps exist between their existing skill sets, and the organization’s needs. 

• Create an employee upskilling plan that includes ways you’ll tackle these skills gaps.
      °    Common upskilling initiatives include offering education benefits or tuition assistance, in-house trainings, cross-training initiatives, mentorship, and career development pathways. 

• Communicate the program to employees, making sure they’re aware of how the benefits support their professional development and goals.
      °    For existing employees, you might hold information sessions to get the word out about the new benefit; for new employees, you might highlight it during their onboarding, or even during the interview process.

• Monitor the program to determine whether it’s delivering the expected results, using data and feedback to improve the program over time. 

If your organization doesn’t offer an upskilling program today, it may be time to reconsider. Nearly three quarters of employees who say their employers do not provide upskilling opportunities also say they would pursue them if provided.

What are the goals of upskilling?

Employees and employers each have their own goals for upskilling, and—thankfully—these goals are often in alignment with one another. 

Many employees upskill with the goal of growing their careers and increasing their future earning potential, as evidenced by a recent survey, in which 96% of Workforce Edge users surveyed [said they] are using their education benefits to improve their opportunities for future promotion, career advancement, or higher salary. Taking the time to learn new skills and develop new competencies can put employees on track to one day grow into more advanced roles that provide new challenges and can net them higher pay.  

Employers, meanwhile, turn to upskilling with the goal of developing high-potential talent and improving employee engagement, retention, and attraction. In addition to those goals, employers also offer upskilling opportunities—like tuition assistance—to develop the skills of tomorrow. Over half (51%) of business leaders say that building the workforce skills needed for the future is among their organization’s primary motivations for offering a tuition assistance program.

What is the value of upskilling?

There are a number of benefits of upskilling and reskilling. On top of filling skills gaps and future-proofing the workforce, upskilling and reskilling opportunities offered by organizations can make them an employer of choice for existing and prospective employees. 

According to a 2022 survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and TalentLMS, 76% of employees say they are more likely to stay with a company that offers continuous training. Often, companies that offer continuous training also offer pathways for employees to grow within the company—something that makes them much more likely to stick around. Companies that excel at internal mobility are able to retain employees for an average of 5.4 years. That’s nearly 2x as long as companies that struggle with it, where the average retention span is 2.9 years.

Upskilling can help not just with talent retention, but attraction, too. A 2022 survey by Amazon and Workplace Intelligence found that employee development is key for attracting talent. Nearly 90% of respondents said strong skills development programs (87%), ample career advancement opportunities (88%), and paths to different career tracks (87%) were important when considering a new job.

How are you upskilling employees and supporting them in their careers?

HR and/or L&D teams are typically tasked with developing and administering an upskilling program. Upskilling and reskilling in HR involves working with company leadership to identify the skills needed for the company to achieve its strategic objectives, both today and in the future. 

If, through this work, the company determines it doesn’t have the right skill sets in place, its HR team will develop a plan for filling these skills gaps. That could be through upskilling—deepening employees’ existing skills—and/or reskilling—cross-training employees to move into new positions more aligned to the company’s long-term needs. 

Offering these benefits is increasingly common in the American workplace: 74% of U.S.-based full-time employees report their current employer provides and/or supports opportunities for upskilling, such as tuition benefits, in-house trainings or third-party conferences and seminars. Such opportunities not only help the company meet its workforce development goals, but support employes in their careers, too.

What upskilling means for the future of work

Upskilling is not just about building skills for the work you do today; it’s about developing the skills to prepare you for the work you may do in the future. 

For employees, these thoughts are top of mind. Today’s employees worry not just about keeping up to date with new and emerging technologies, but with power skills too. In the 2024 SEI Consumer Survey, U.S.-based full-time employees most frequently indicate feeling they could improve their technology skills (49%) to advance in their current job, followed by hard skills (46%) and communication skills (45%).

That employees are recognizing their own personal skills gaps—and wanting to improve upon them—speaks to the importance of continuous learning in the workplace. When employees have ongoing access to professional development, they’re not only more likely to be engaged with their work, but also more likely to stay with their employer. Nearly half of employees say they are motivated to stay with an employer that supports continued education or the opportunities to cross-train/explore other areas of interest at work.

Employees who do not have access to these opportunities are more likely to leave their employer. According to a recent survey by McKinsey and Company, 41% of over 13,000 respondents cited lack of career development/advancement as the most common reason for quitting their previous jobs.

When it comes to the future of work, then, those companies that figure out how to keep their employees engaged through continuous learning will be best primed to meet their strategic goals now and well into the future. 

Is upskilling worth it?

So is investing in an upskilling program worth it? There are clear upsides: employees feel valued while getting a chance to keep their skills sharp, while companies can attract and retain a workforce that’s better equipped to adapt to the future of work. But are these enough?  

The short answer is yes. While developing and administering an employee upskilling program may seem like a large undertaking, it’s not as difficult as it may sound—and it can have major benefits for employers and employees alike. You don’t have to take our word for it. Just consider the number of employees who use these benefits when they have access to them. Among full-time employees in the U.S. whose employer provides upskilling opportunities, 85% are currently or have previously pursued upskilling opportunities their employer provides or supports.

One in two students said their employer education benefits were the only reasons they went back to school: 56% of Workforce Edge users surveyed agree that without Workforce Edge and their employer education benefits, they would not have gone back to school while working.

When employees use employer-sponsored education benefits to go back to school, they’re making an investment in their future—one that pays dividends for them and their employer alike by developing the skills they need to be successful in the changing world of work. 

Half of U.S. workers are worried about gaining the skills needed to advance their career. With the rapidly changing nature of work, these worries are understandable—but not insurmountable. Employers have many opportunities to ease employees’ concerns in this arena. 

One such way is to offer employees ongoing opportunities to hone their skills through upskilling or reskilling. These initiatives can equip employees with the skills they need to be successful in their career both today and in the future. And of course, they benefit employers, too, by rewarding them with a skilled workforce that’s more adaptable in the face of change.

If your organization is ready to level up your employees’ skill sets, contact Workforce Edge today for a free demo of our education benefits platform. From tuition-covered degrees to course discounts, we break down the cost barriers to adult education—transforming your workforce along the way.