Understanding the Difference Between Upskilling and Reskilling

In today’s rapidly changing world, adaptability and continuous learning are crucial. Upskilling involves acquiring advanced skills within the employees’ field while reskilling entails learning entirely new skills for a different career path. In brief, upskilling and reskilling approaches are vital for personal and professional growth, enabling employees to stay relevant and competitive in a dynamic job landscape.

What Is Upskilling?

Upskilling refers to the process of acquiring new knowledge, skills or competencies to enhance employees’ abilities and stay relevant in the ever-changing job market. It involves continuous learning and training to adapt to technological advancements, industry trends, and job requirements, ultimately improving career prospects and employability.

What Is Reskilling?

Reskilling refers to the process of learning new skills or undergoing training to transition into a different role or profession. It involves acquiring fresh competencies that are different from employees’ current skill set, often due to changes in job demands, industry shifts, or technological advancements. Reskilling helps employees stay employable and adaptable in dynamic work environments.

Upskilling vs. Reskilling

Upskilling focuses on continuing education in enhancing performance and knowledge in a current profession or specific field. These skills also help to adapt to changing market conditions. Often, upskilling enhances an employee’s value by updating their skill set and positioning them for the future.

Reskilling adds new skills so a person can move into a different job within the company or another organization. It does not simply refresh existing skills. Reskilling may require completing several certificate programs – or even obtaining a degree – to become employable in a new area.

Difference between Upskilling vs. Reskilling

The difference between upskilling and reskilling is that upskilling is the process of learning new skills to improve your current job performance, while reskilling is the process of learning new skills to change careers. Both upskilling and reskilling can be beneficial for employees in today’s rapidly changing job market.

Let’s explore the difference between the two:

Upskilling:

Upskilling focuses on continuing education in enhancing performance and knowledge in a current profession or specific field. These skills also help to adapt to changing market conditions. Often, upskilling enhances an employee’s value by updating their skill set and positioning them for the future.

Example: An IT professional taking courses to learn the latest programming languages and tools to enhance their software development capabilities.

Reskilling:

Reskilling adds new skills so a person can move into a different job within the company or another organization. It does not simply refresh existing skills. Reskilling may require completing several certificate programs – or even obtaining a degree – to become employable in a new area.

Example: A manufacturing worker retraining to become a data analyst as their industry increasingly adopts automation and artificial intelligence.

Objectives of Upskilling and Reskilling

Objectives of Upskilling:

• Strengthening current competencies to improve job performance and efficiency.
• Keeping pace with technological advancements and industry trends to remain relevant in the job market.
• Gaining new skills to open up opportunities for career growth and progression within the same field.
• Encouraging employees to stay with the organization by investing in their professional development.
• Improving employees’ productivity and output through the acquisition of specialized skills.

Objectives of Reskilling:

• Acquiring entirely different skill sets to facilitate a smooth transition into a new job role or career path.
• Preparing employees for changing job market demands and potential disruptions in their current industry.
• Filling gaps in the workforce by training employees for positions that are in high demand.
• Enabling workers to shift to emerging industries or sectors with better job prospects.
• Broadening an individual’s skill set to make them more versatile and attractive to employers in diverse fields.

Benefits of Upskilling

• Upskilling opens up opportunities for career growth, increasing the chances of promotions, higher-level responsibilities and better job prospects.
• Acquiring new skills and knowledge makes employees more attractive to employers, improving their chances of securing new job opportunities and remaining competitive in the job market.
• Upskilling helps employees adapt to changing job requirements and technological advancements, reducing the risk of job displacement due to automation or industry shifts.
• By acquiring new skills or enhancing existing ones, employees can perform their jobs more effectively and efficiently, leading to increased productivity and better outcomes.
• Learning new skills fosters personal growth, boosts confidence, and leads to higher levels of job satisfaction, as employees feel more competent and fulfilled in their roles.

Benefits of Reskilling

• Reskilling equips employees with new, in-demand skills, making them more attractive to employers and enhancing their chances of finding new job opportunities.
• By acquiring additional skills, employees can qualify for higher-level roles and career advancement within their current organization or in different industries.
• Reskilling prepares employees for the changing job market, ensuring they remain relevant and adaptable to emerging technologies and industry trends.
• With new skills and competencies, employees are better equipped to handle shifts in job requirements, reducing the risk of job displacement due to automation or industry changes.
• Reskilling fosters personal growth boosts confidence, and empowers employees to take on new challenges, leading to increased job satisfaction and motivation.

Why Upskill and Reskill is becoming more important?

The employer-employee relationship has changed greatly over recent years, with employees expecting more from their organizations than before. If employees don’t feel they’re getting development opportunities, they won’t hesitate to look outside for organizations that offer learning and development as part of a role. Additionally, in today’s ever-changing world, continuous learning needs to be adopted as a lifelong process and pursuit and should be supported by organizations.

We also know that it costs more to recruit someone outside of a company than it does to develop and retain an individual that’s already a part of the organization. By upskilling or reskilling, companies are allocating their investment to the people that have prior knowledge of the company.

The advantage here is to find the potential of the individuals within your organization, understand the skills that they have, and measure them up against the roles that you need to fill and the objectives that need to be accomplished and match them.

How to implement upskilling and reskilling for employee training in an agile workforce?

1. Define company learning objectives

The first step is to define what new skills your company needs. Do some research. Look at trends in your industry and how needs are shifting over time. Also, look at feedback from customers to see how you can better support their needs. Then create a few concrete learning objectives that solve for these necessary new skills. Once you have these created, it will give you a roadmap for upskilling and reskilling training.

2. Survey your employees

Next, you’ll want buy-in and weigh-in from your employees. Each manager should sit down with the team members and go over personal goals. In addition, survey employees on satisfaction, culture, and engagement. Once you have this feedback, compare these results against your learning objectives. This should give you a good idea of which upskilling and reskilling is most needed across your company. Plus, it makes everyone a part of the learning process which will increase engagement once the training is rolled out.

3. Create a training plan

Next, you’ll want to create courses around your upskilling and reskilling needs. Not only can they offer templates to help you create these training sessions, but they can also incorporate your existing training materials into this system.

4. Evaluate often

It’s important to get feedback often, especially when you are offering new upskilling and reskilling training. Talk to various departments to see how new skills are being translated over to customers, talk to human resources to see what new skills are needed, and get feedback from employees themselves. All this communication will give you a clearer picture of what is working and what needs to be added to your upskilling training modules.

Conclusion

In conclusion, grasping the distinction between upskilling and reskilling is crucial for employees and organizations alike. While upskilling enhances existing skills, reskilling involves a complete shift to new abilities. Both approaches are essential for thriving in today’s rapidly evolving job market. By recognizing their unique benefits and incorporating them strategically, employees can stay competitive and organizations can cultivate a versatile and adaptable workforce to meet the challenges of the future. Elevate your skills with EduBridge’s Self Development courses. Explore now!