How upskilling can improve employee experience

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:

1. Put your employees in the driver’s seat
   Employees want to see that their future with your organization is bright. They want to be empowered to grow with your business and take ownership of their professional progression. So instead of telling them what kinds of upskilling opportunities, they should pursue, why not give them the tools to take their growth into their own hands?

   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.

2. Think about the cultural component
   You can’t have an impactful upskilling initiative or improve employee experience without focusing on your workplace culture. In fact, best-selling author Jacob Morgan says that culture makes up as much as 40% of the overall employee experience.

   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.

3. Cultivate connection with mentorships
   If there’s one initiative that can simultaneously improve employee experience and improve skill building, it’s mentoring. From an employee experience perspective, mentorships give people the chance to network and build relationships with their colleagues across the organization. Consequently, it’s no surprise that a CNBC survey found that more than 90% of workers who have a mentor are satisfied with their jobs.

   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.

4. Prioritize experiential learning
   You can’t solely rely on L&D content to get your employees to build new skills. If your people don’t have the chance to put the lessons they’re learning into practice, they’re likely to disengage with the curriculum, and they won’t develop the competencies they’ll need. As Amanda Nolen, co-founder of the educational transformation consultancy NilesNolen, explains, “Learning requires involvement beyond binge-watching videos. Would you let a surgeon operate on you if she has binge-watched videos of other doctors in the operating room? Building skills, let alone expertise, needs a lot more than that.”

   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.

5. Leverage the right technology
   Technology is another major pillar of employee experience. As “the central nervous system of the organization”, as Jacob Morgan describes it, it’s easy to see why the right digital tools are so crucial to creating a compelling employee experience.

   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.

6. Level the playing field
   Upskilling can’t be reserved for a select few. In the past, biases and barriers prevented some employees from accessing the same breadth of learning opportunities as their colleagues. But if you want your upskilling initiative to enhance employee experience, you need to make sure you’re doing everything you can to level the playing field.

   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.