According to Willis Towers Watson, 85% of jobs that will be available in 10 years aren’t available now. In-demand skills will be more critical than ever in 2023 and beyond. As technologies, such as artificial intelligence and automation, continue making their way into virtually every sector, we must continuously update our skills to remain competitive.
Continuous learning throughout your professional career is a critical factor in retaining a competitive advantage. Managers and business leaders know investing in and developing teams is crucial for overall success.
With more than half of the workforce predicted to be working in roles that don’t yet exist today, we are facing a significant skills gap that is only likely to grow. It’s vital to focus on developing your people through training for the future.
How?
Through upskilling.
Why Learning and Development Matters
Upskilling, or learning and development, is learning new valuable skills for your current or future career. It can be used to describe the process of learning something new, or it can refer to new knowledge itself.
Having upskilling as a core initiative ensures you are helping employees gain new skills that make them better at their jobs and better prepared for future roles. Prioritizing your current staff keeps everyone motivated and engaged in what they do daily– leading to higher retention rates and lower turnover rates.
It also helps your company stay competitive because you increase your ability to attract and retain top talent who understand how to work with the latest technologies needed to drive the business forward today.
With all these benefits coming from upskilling your current employees, it makes sense why so many companies are turning to corporate training programs to help improve performance on both a personal level (for example, leadership development) and an organizational level (for instance: customer service). Intentionally developing your team helps increase revenue by increasing productivity and morale among your existing staff—it’s one of those rare win-win situations.
Quality Teams for Quality Results
A culture of learning is essential for attracting and retaining top talent for your company. It means that you’re committed to providing opportunities for employees to learn and grow within their roles and it indicates that you prioritize their well-being as part of your success indicators.
Here’s why:
- It shows employees that you care about their professional development. When people know that their employer is invested in their growth, they’ll be more likely to stick around longer and be more engaged when they are there.
- It helps build a strong team dynamic. When everyone on your team has the opportunity to learn something new or improve their skills, you can approach problems from different angles, which means better solutions.
- It shows clients and customers that your business cares about quality work and high standards. This makes people more confident working with your company, which can lead to more sales.
Invest in a Culture of Learning
While it is helpful to start with one-off training sessions for your team members, we’re talking about something more substantial than that: An environment where learning is part of the culture and process.
So how do you go about this?
The first step is to ensure that you’re hiring people who are comfortable with change and learning new things—and then ensure they have opportunities to do so regularly.
- Offering cross-training opportunities within your departments enables more transparency across your organization; everyone knows some of everyone else’s responsibilities and can extend more support beyond their typical duties.
- Introducing new projects at your company can compel employees to challenge their current perspective and discover new things.
- Implementing training time in sprint capacity ensures that learning and development are a top priority.
How Outsourcing Development Can Help Upskill Your Team
Outsourcing your IT staff can help you stay on top of fluctuating demands, whether those demands include the latest technology or keeping up with the latest security protocols.
- With outsourcing, you don’t need to constantly train and retrain employees to keep up with what’s new in the field. Instead, outsourcing companies keep their IT staff trained and updated on recent trends as they emerge. This way, they’re always ready to meet any demand that comes along—and they’ll never be caught off-guard by an unexpected technological shift or development in the industry.
- Further, when you partner with a development firm that will embed your team into the project, they will upskill your team to ensure long-term success. By including your team in the development project, your partner ensures that your team will know exactly what’s being built, how it’s being built, and how to manage the product beyond the partnership agreement.
- Outsourcing also ensures that your company stays ahead of compliance requirements (in other words, making sure you abide by relevant laws). When an outsourcing company takes care of all these issues for you at no extra cost, you have more time and resources available for working on other vital aspects of running your business—from marketing campaigns and product development to customer service.
Build Great Software and Great Teams at the Same Time
If you want to grow your business and stay competitive, you’ve got to keep up with the latest trends.
There are so many things vying for your attention—from the next big thing in technology to the best way to market your company online—and it’s hard enough just keeping up with them all.
Outsourcing software development allows you to stay focused on more important business matters instead of trying to weed through what software you need, when you need it, and how you’ll build it. Plus, hiring a team saves you the headache of organizing a well-versed internal team that is capable of hitting deadlines.
When faced with the option of training your team, building a new product, or often both, it’s crucial to consider the current state of your team. Consider what the adoption of this new technology will look like for your team. Does your team have the skills to take over the reins of the product? Will you need long-term support?
Many software outsourcing vendors can execute requirements and support getting your product to market. Software development outsourcing is a great solution to get your product off the ground, but sometimes you need more support than execution.
When requirements call for new technology, training employees, or process improvement, a software development partner will help identify the best technologies to set your company apart from your competitors and guide you to a solution– taking much of the uncertainty associated with digital transformation off of your plate.
This support will help your employees reach their full individual and organizational potential while supporting the implementation of necessary changes.
And if things change? Your partner will be there to help you adapt as well.
In Conclusion
In this article, we’ve discussed the benefits of upskilled employees for your business. The key takeaway is that by providing your team with new skills and knowledge, you position them to perform better and engage more deeply with their daily work. This helps your company succeed and inspires confidence in its future and employee loyalty.
Ready to take your team’s skills to the next level?
Ascendle’s Velocity Multiplier approach enables your team to work alongside our team every step of the way– resulting in world-class software solutions and teams armed with the skills they need to take over the reins.
