An organization is only as effective as its employees. When your employees lack the skills to do their jobs efficiently, it can mean lost productivity, increased errors, dissatisfied customers, and, ultimately, less business revenue. The solution? Implementing an upskilling program to help your employees master the skills they need to thrive in their roles.
Here's a closer look at what upskilling is, how it works, the benefits it can bring to your organization, and a seven-step framework to help you launch a successful upskilling program.
If your organization wants a flexible, easy-to-implement upskilling program that can scale quickly, consider Harvard Business School Online’s certificate programs. HBS Online can work with you to help sharpen your team’s skills.
What Is Upskilling?
Upskilling is the process of learning a new skill to improve performance in one’s current role. It’s often part of an organization’s employee training and development program. A few upskilling examples include:
- An email marketer learning how to perform A/B tests to refine messaging and boost conversion rates
- A programmer learning a new language so they have more tools available when coding a project
- A team member learning leadership skills so they'll be better equipped to lead an initiative or step in to manage a project
Upskilling vs. Reskilling
While they may sound similar, upskilling and reskilling are distinct concepts.
Upskilling is about improving in a current role, whereas reskilling prepares employees for a new position. A reskilling example might be an administrative assistant learning to allocate time and resources as they transition onto the organization’s project management team.
7 Steps for Upskilling Your Workforce
While there’s no one correct way to upskill your employees, it can be beneficial to take a structured approach. Below are seven steps to determine what skills your employees and organization need for success, identify gaps, and work toward filling them.
1. Determine the Skills Necessary for Success Today
Begin by identifying the skills employees need to perform their current roles effectively. This requires a deep understanding of each role you hope to upskill.
Consider the following:
- What duties does each position have?
- What business metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) does the role impact, whether directly or indirectly?
- What would it look like for your employees to work five or 10 percent more efficiently?
- What specific skills could empower them to work more efficiently and drive that productivity boost?
Keep in mind that critical competencies will differ across teams. Your accounting team may require finance and accounting skills to excel; the same isn’t true for your marketing or business administration teams, which would prioritize marketing skills and business essentials, respectively.
2. Identify Skills Necessary for Organizational Initiatives
As your organization evolves—for example, pursuing new initiatives or strategic directions—the skills your employees need to be successful will also shift. Evaluating workforce skills based solely on current demands isn’t enough; consider what they'll need to be successful over the next year, five years, or 10 years.
Consider the following:
- What direction is your organization moving in?
- What new products or services do you want to launch?
- What new markets do you plan to enter?
- What new technologies or systems are you hoping to implement, and what skills will be required on an organizational level to help you get there?
For example, if your organization is redefining its role in broader society, employees may need global business and sustainability skills. If you’re likely to undergo a digital transformation, you may want to prioritize skills related to artificial intelligence (AI), digital platforms, and innovation.
3. Document Employee Strengths and Weaknesses
Next, you should evaluate your employees against the two lists of skills you’ve compiled for current and future success. Your goal is to identify—and celebrate—areas of proficiency while also recognizing areas of weakness, which will ultimately form the basis of your upskilling program.
Where weaknesses exist, prioritize them to guide your efforts. Start with what's essential to the job, followed by skills that aren't as necessary but could lead to significant productivity and efficiency gains. The lowest priority should be skills considered “nice to have” rather than essential.
4. Design Your Employee Training and Development Program
The next and possibly most intensive step is implementing a training and development program to help your employees learn the missing skills. Your program's structure will depend on several factors, including your internal resources and expertise, the availability of external training materials, and how much control you want over the learning experience.
You might, for example, implement an informal mentoring initiative that pairs junior staff with more experienced team members. Alternatively, you could develop a custom curriculum internally or partner with a third party, such as HBS Online, to provide high-quality, flexible training solutions.
In the HBS Online course Leadership Principles, HBS Professor Joshua Margolis highlights the importance of tailoring your upskilling program to your team's realities and your organization's challenges, instead of some idealized situation.
As you design your upskilling program, tailor it to your team's real-world context. Just as leadership must adapt to specific situations, training should align with your people and priorities.
“There's no right way to be a leader in every situation," Margolis says in Leadership Principles. "The mix of structure and direction versus support and development that you provide needs to fit the people you're leading and the situation you all face together."
5. Incentivize Employees
If your organization already offers an upskilling program but struggles with completion rates, consider offering incentives to motivate employees. While career growth is a long-term upskilling benefit, offering more immediate rewards can boost engagement, establish goodwill, and even encourage healthy competition among team members.
Some potential incentives to consider include:
- Public recognition in a company announcement or during an all-staff meeting
- Financial rewards, such as a bonus or raise, when upskilling goals are met
- A promotion or title change once certain educational requirements are attained
6. Formalize the Upskilling Process
Instead of establishing your upskilling program as an optional component of corporate learning, consider integrating it into your existing systems and processes as a mandatory requirement.
For instance, during annual performance reviews or when creating personal development plans, ask employees to choose a skill from your list as something they can focus on over the year. You might suggest a skill to benefit them and explain how your development program can support their progress.
This approach has two key benefits:
- Accountability: It puts upskilling goals in writing, making it possible to evaluate employee progress toward mastering the skill
- Career alignment: It ties upskilling to career development, incentivizing completion
7. Make it Continuous
Think of upskilling not as a one-time initiative, but a continuous investment in your employees. Routinely evaluate employee proficiencies to identify where skill gaps exist and opportunities for additional training.
For long-term development, programs like HBS Online's Credential of Leadership, Impact, and Management in Business (CLIMB) can support a culture of continuous learning.
Whichever programs you implement, periodically evaluate them to determine their effectiveness. Are you seeing measurable progress? If not, don’t hesitate to adjust. For example, organizations with an informal mentorship program might choose to move to a more structured learning experience. If your internally designed curriculum isn’t delivering results, partnering with a trusted expert like HBS Online could offer a more impactful solution.
Related: How HBS Online Can Sharpen Your Team’s Skills
Reap the Benefits of Upskilling for Your Organization
The most immediate benefit of upskilling is increased efficiency and effectiveness. Employees who gain new skills become better equipped to do their jobs. Upskilling can lead to fewer errors, faster work, more productivity, and improvements in other company-wide metrics.
Upskilling also supports stronger talent retention. A recent survey conducted by Strategic Education found that 62 percent of workers would consider changing jobs if recruited by another company offering better opportunities to advance their skills, such as via tuition reimbursement. As a bonus, improved retention lowers hiring costs. According to Gallup, replacing a single employee can cost anywhere from half to two times their annual salary.
Your employees see benefits from upskilling as well. By learning new skills and advancing their education, they’re likely to experience greater job security, increased career prospects, and an overall more fulfilling employee experience.
If you’re interested in implementing an upskilling program for your organization but aren’t sure where to start or how to design a curriculum internally, consider whether HBS Online can help you close your organization’s skill gaps. A recent City Square Associates survey of former learners found that:
- 80 percent thought HBS Online was better than other online business programs
- 87 percent acquired new skills that were immediately applicable to their roles
- 90 percent felt more self-assured at work
- 84 percent reported greater confidence in making business decisions after completing a program
Related: What Is the Value of a Certificate from HBS Online?
What makes HBS Online such a great choice for employee upskilling? Courses are taught by HBS professors and built around the case study method, which immerses learners in real business leaders' challenges, struggles, and successes. Programs also feature interactive exercises alongside a global community of peers, allowing learners to apply their newly developed skills and build their networks.
With the right upskilling strategy, your organization can stay agile, competitive, and future-ready.
Are you ready to build a capable, future-focused team? Learn more about bringing HBS Online to your organization.
