How To Reskill Talent In A Quickly Changing Economy

Creating a more agile, responsive organisation

While digital innovation is a necessity, it’s tempting to go overboard on the digital revolution, hiring an entirely new tranche of tech-savvy millennials to replace an existing team. That’s likely to be a costly mistake, diluting an organization’s core values and brand beyond repair. The sweet spot lies in integrating new digital talent with the core of the existing organization, incorporating digital technology and reskilling as required, to ensure brand equity remains strong—albeit updated for the digital age.

 

This is a delicate balance, requiring a clear understanding of both current capabilities and likely future needs, then bridging the gaps. The key here is to look strategically at reskilling, with the intention of creating a more agile, responsive organization.
 
One of the most powerful attributes an organization can have is adaptability. In a digital context, this means understanding how technology can be applied to existing business processes and which skills are needed to boost flexibility. Successful digital organizations must be able to react quickly to changing market conditions.
 
Let’s make a distinction here between Agile (the methodology) and agility (a quality permeating an organization). As a methodology, Agile is applied most successfully to product development. Its utilization enables companies to try new things, fail fast, and iterate until they develop a product that meets market needs. As a quality, agility should run through the digital organization. It’s an indication of how quickly a company can adapt to shifting market conditions, reskill talent, and succeed in an era of rapid transformation.
 
Although bringing greater agility into a business may require engaging some new hires, shifting the focus too far toward digital risks alienating current employees and eroding existing expertise. Current employees already have valuable experience with the brand. They may fear that their service is unappreciated and become resentful or leave. Moreover, the cost of repeatedly hiring new talent is far greater than the cost of reskilling. Typically, replacing an employee who has left costs an organization twice as much as retaining them.
 
By reskilling employees who already understand the company, and simultaneously bringing in digital experts where necessary, organizations can achieve the best of both worlds. This has the added benefit of validating both the experience of longer-serving employees and the digital skills needed to thrive in the twenty-first century.

Arguably, today’s university education is no longer fit for purpose. In a rapidly evolving world, a student who spends three, four, or even five years studying may graduate only to discover that their new-found knowledge is already out of date. Technologies such as blockchain and robotic process automation are evolving so quickly that there’s no guarantee existing knowledge will still be relevant in a few months, let alone several years.
 
Digital learning is bridging that gap by providing people with a personalized, relevant way to learn, in an environment where they feel comfortable, any time and in any location. This always-on approach addresses two primary challenges: it provides a route for new hires to quickly familiarise themselves with an organization; and it gives existing employees an effective method of learning new skills, with the intention of applying their new learning immediately, in a live, productive environment. Techniques such as gamification encourage collaboration with others both inside and outside the organization. Feedback mechanisms allow for applied experience to update the learning modules, thereby ensuring the content is always relevant—and again, ‘always on’.
 
Current employees already have a strong understanding of the company’s core business strengths, and they need to learn and use digital skills. Digital learning tools represent a way for them to do their jobs better, to feel in control of their learning experience, and even to gamify the process of learning digitally and connect with colleagues. Bringing people together in multi-skilled teams invites them to contribute from their unique perspective, with the understanding that those who come from another background will offer something distinct.
 
At Infosys, we’ve created the world’s largest corporate university. Recently, we’ve digitized that university to make it more accessible and flexible. This digitized learning capability, known as Wingspan, allows thousands of employees to study together, comparing responses and scores, regardless of their physical location.
 
Anyone with access to the app can study whenever they want, wherever they want. They can collaborate with colleagues or motivate themselves by trying to beat their high scores. The learning is focused on topics that they need for their jobs. It’s not theoretical—it’s highly practical and applicable.

Digital learning is an excellent tool, but it’s not a panacea. Its success depends on how effectively it is applied. Your organization should be looking to generate a digital strategy, understanding current digital capabilities, identifying gaps, and investing in bridging those gaps.
 
In general, this will involve bringing in a limited number of new digital-native hires and reskilling those with organizational experience. It will require bringing them together in multi-skilled teams. And it will be accelerated by giving them the chance to direct and share their learning experiences.