Three steps to create more dynamic ways of working By Austen Gregerson, Future of Work Specialist at Gloat As more space grows between us and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a few common themes begin to emerge: uncertainty, ingenuity,
By Nicole Schreiber-Shearer, Future of Work Specialist @ Gloat
February 2, 2022
There’s one factor that will make or break your business, regardless of your industry, region, or headcount: employee experience. If your workers aren’t inspired by what they’re doing, there’s no way that they’ll be able to perform to the best of their abilities. And even if you might not be able to see it right away, sub-par employee experience will take a toll on customer satisfaction, output levels, and revenue potential.
If you have any lingering doubts about the importance of employee experience, just take a look at numbers: companies that invest in employee experience outperform those that don’t by 2x in terms of average profit and they’re twice as likely to be found in the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Consequently, there’s no question that getting employee experience back on track needs to be a priority for 2022. So what can leaders do to improve it?
Recent research reveals that skills are a big part of the equation. Boston Consulting Group found that a significant predictor of whether employees are satisfied with their work experience is how enthusiastically they answer the question, “Does my job make good use of my skills?”. This finding in turn gives leaders a new question to answer themselves: how can upskilling and reskilling strategies be calibrated to take employee experience to the next level?
Finetuning your understanding of the basics is the first step towards turning skill-building into your secret weapon for improving your employee experience. Here’s what you need to know before building out your upskilling strategy:
Upskilling can help businesses stay competitive in rapidly changing environments and unlock the agility that workforces need to thrive. Since the World Economic Forum predicts that 50% of the global workforce will need to learn new skills by 2025, upskilling is quickly rising to the top of many leaders’ priority lists.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to creating an upskilling strategy, especially if you’re looking to develop an initiative that will improve your employee experience. However, there are a handful of best practices that every leader should keep in mind:
By matching people to projects based on their skills, ambitions, and interests, talent marketplaces increase the visibility into opportunities within your workplace, inspiring employees to take advantage of them.
Culture will also play a deciding role in the success of your upskilling initiative. Mercer found that the employees who are most excited about the prospect of skill-building are those that feel like their manager has their back, they work in a climate of trust, and they’re comfortable declining unreasonable requests.
In addition to cultivating connectivity, co-learning schemes are a powerful tool for skills since employees can see what their more experienced colleagues are doing and ask them questions directly.
If you want to get employees excited about upskilling, you need to integrate hands-on learning as part of your strategy. Talent marketplaces make it easy to identify projects, gigs, and shadowing opportunities that align with the skills that your employees are looking to build.
Although there are plenty of workplace technology platforms, none will impact upskilling the way a talent marketplace can. The two-sided platforms align employees’ interests with your business priorities, empowering your people to grow their careers with your organization. Talent marketplaces also identify the experiential learning opportunities that employees can participate in to acquire the skills they’ll need to reach their career goals.
When it comes to democratizing access to opportunities, talent marketplaces are a game-changer. The platforms increase the visibility of both employees and opportunities so that no one is overlooked.
With the right approach to upskilling, you can simultaneously improve employee experience, and ensure your people develop the right competencies to perform in the new world of work. To learn more about turning skills into your next competitive advantage, download our ebook, The ultimate guide to the skills-based organization.
Three steps to create more dynamic ways of working By Austen Gregerson, Future of Work Specialist at Gloat As more space grows between us and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a few common themes begin to emerge: uncertainty, ingenuity,
The game-changing tools taking talent strategies to the next level By Yoni Friedman, VP Solutions Consulting at Gloat Many of the CEOs and business leaders I know joke about how their lack of personal social media activity is holding their
The innovations that will help your business get ready for its next chapter By Nicole Schreiber-Shearer, Future of Work Specialist at Gloat After two years of non-stop disruptions and challenges, it’s easy to understand why leaders are turning their attention
