Reskilling Revolution: Pathways To Boost Employee Engagement And Wellbeing

Meeting your employees’ expectations

A new labor market is coming into focus – and current employee sentiments are actually inspiring trepidation. New data from Workday notes the labor market slowed down during the first half of 2023. It found that there was a 30% increase in job applications, yet a 15% decrease in job offers. The reality is there are fewer opportunities despite a higher demand. 

Additionally, the research found that employee happiness declined – with employee health, wellbeing, and progression ranking among the lowest drivers of sentiment this year.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that performance and engagement have correlated results based on overall employee outlook on their current and future job prospects. Interestingly, a report from Gallup found that only 23% of employees are engaged at work (think about that: that’s less than one out of every four workers). There’s a growing expectation for organizations to refocus on employee needs and adjust internal programming to boost morale. This isn’t just a feel-good endeavor, but something that will pay dividends in the form of reaching new business goals.

Meeting People Where They Are

A major area often overlooked is the growth potential of the company. Opportunities for professional development and promotion play a key role in employee engagement.

Creating these opportunities starts first with building genuine connections between employees and managers so employees can feel comfortable sharing their career goals. This process also requires commitment from the company to invest time and resources in the personal and professional development of all employees. 

From there, managers and employers can work to upskill and reskill employees. Upskilling is continuous learning that seeks to help employees develop new and necessary skills, minimizing skills gaps and providing them a pathway to promotion. Reskilling is the act of training employees to take on a different role within a company. This creates opportunities for lateral moves or exploring new roles that can support long-term career growth. 

This kind of professional development is best facilitated with tools that support managers in capturing employees’ career goals, mapping out development plans, and tracking employees’ progress toward skill development. For example, performance management software and learning management systems provide employees with training programs and learning materials; they also serve as a  way to better track goals, feedback and outcomes. 

The best results come from combining these tools with check-ins that uncover where your teams are at, what they’re looking to expand on, and how the company can help – then providing ways to reach those goals.

Pathways to Engagement and Positive Outcomes

Companies can offer training and development programs that help employees bolster the skills and knowledge needed to reach their goals. This can be done through formal programs, like online courses or in-person workshops, or through informal programs, such as mentorship and job shadowing. 

In reality, these programs can increase engagement and offer pathways to promotions or new roles via reskilling. By understanding what skills are needed for advancement or role changes, the learning programs can identify the best route to obtain those skills. 

On paper this approach seems fool-proof – but the truth is, people are busy; and also there’s a constant subset of employees who feel stuck and are participating in the ‘quiet quitting’ movement. So, learning programs need to actually encourage employees to participate and need to provide as much value to users as possible. 

It’s important employers prioritize this work, and provide allotted time or resources for this. For example, Google has an 80/20 rule – where 20% of employee time is expected to be spent on innovations. In this case, it would be learning, growth, or development. Keys to success are allocating the time and prioritizing time along with offering a platform for the skill development, or a budget to get that elsewhere.
 
With something like gamification, people have the opportunity to take a personalized approach to the content they consume. Given the actual mechanism of gamification programs, people can enjoy showing off the certifications or status they earn by completing specific modules or programs. There’s real benefit in using programs like this, as they provide a unique feedback loop to employers – they show cross-company topics of interest, or where teams need more support. 

They also represent an easy way to reward employees for expertise in certain topics. These tools help employees feel more in control of their growth, and the unique pathways toward their vision of success.

We’re in an era where the most successful employees are not just showing up to ‘do a job’ but rather to be fulfilled in their role. Once goals and interests are identified, companies need to provide opportunities for employees to work towards them and unlock new opportunities through reskilling. From there, employee retention and fulfillment rates will increase, and ultimately a business' bottom line will too.

Geri Morgan is the Chief People Officer of Intellum. She strives to build and sustain people-first cultures.