A teacher is like a lamp that dispels the greatest darkness. Through their wisdom, they paved a perfect path for us to traverse. And, like a sea captain, they harbor us to our desired destination. Even today, regardless of our power & position in any firm and even the industry we serve, the fundamental need for such a guiding light is always felt.
In the corporate sphere, though we do not have teachers, the HR department and L&D professionals take care of devising & deploying accurate frameworks for appropriate skill development of employees. Reskilling – preparing efficient employees to take on newer job roles within an organization, is one such scheme they resort to for future-proofing human resources. Career pathing – formulating an ideal career map in order to achieve one’s goal is at the core of this concept.
Career pathing, therefore, is a process employees implement to map out courses within their organization for their career path and career development. A critical factor of performance development planning involves understanding the knowledge, skills, personal characteristics, and experience needed for employees to progress in their careers. Encompassing both an employee’s desired destination and the steps, a career path provides them with a sense of direction. Many see it as a way to assess career progress and an opportunity to achieve career goals and milestones along the way. Thereby, a thoughtful career path plan has emerged as a key factor in employee engagement and employee retention.
So, what goes into the making of a robust Reskilling program? Uncovering skill gaps, identifying essential critical skills & skill adjacencies, plus promoting job shadowing are the top concerns whilst developing any reskilling scheme. In reality, building connected learners through a focus on digital skills, measuring & evaluating success, and encouraging lifelong learning could potentially result in an eight-fold increase in employee engagement!
Coming to Reskilling methodologies, endeavours suchlike – on job training, industry courses & certifications, mentoring/coaching, e-Learning, and even blended learning are put into force in order to enable proper personnel to bridge the gap between contemporary & futuristic requisites. A culture of learning has become the desideratum. Skill development in consequence needs to be part & parcel of each employee’s routine.
The speed of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent. When compared with previous industrial revolutions, the fourth is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. The breadth & depth of these changes heralds the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance. Acceleration of innovation and the velocity of disruption have always been hard to comprehend or anticipate. These drivers thus constitute a source of constant surprise, even for the best connected and most well informed of us.
Disruptive technologies like AI, IoT, Genetic Engineering, and Quantum Computing have brought a paradigm shift in the concept of learning in the world of work. Already, artificial intelligence is all around us, from virtual assistants to translation software to algorithms used to predict one’s interests; technology has left its marks in all facets of life! Evidently, Continuous/Lifelong Learning has gained paramount significance across various industries, the right time to indulge in which is now!