COVID-19 highlighted discrepancies between employees’ current and future skills. According to a recent McKinsey report, the percentage of business leaders who prioritised skills development rose from 59% to 78% after covid. The ability to nurture talent is critical to long-term growth. he technological advances brought by industry 4.0 are transforming customer needs, business models and markets. For this, highly specialised skills are increasingly needed that many employees do not currently have.
Upskilling refers to improving skills or expanding skills within the same job. Reskilling means acquiring new skills for a different field of work. Both require strategic planning and agility, strengthening the role of training and continuous learning. Only through partnerships with academic institutions, government agencies and companies can workers be successfully retrained and redeployed.
It is also important to point out that training current employees rather than replacing them costs 20% less than external hiring and supports employee engagement and retention.
Forward-thinking organisations are preparing for transformation in three areas:
- Assessing and predicting the skills needed.
- Prioritising new technologies and processes required to be agile and future-ready.
- Adapting to change through coaching, training and support.
An effective contributions to organisations, be them industries as well as educational institutions, will be provided by the outcome of the NewMetro Project.