The New Normal: Supporting Internal Mobility Through Reskilling

In a 2019 Global Human Capital Trends Survey, more than 50% of respondents said it was easier for employees to find jobs outside of their organizations than inside. This poses a major concern as digital transformation is disrupting labor markets across the world.

With new jobs comes the need for new and emerging skills, resulting in a growing skill gap within the labor market. It’s estimated that over one billion people will need to be reskilled by 2030 due to disruptions by the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Organizations must prepare their workforces with the skills needed for future and emerging requirements demanded by digital transformation. There is an opportunity for individuals in jobs that are diminishing or becoming obsolete to be reskilled to fill skill gaps and meet skill demands.

Subsequently, reskilling allows for internal mobility within workforces as employees can transition career paths, reskill to fill immediate needs within the organization and gain essential skills needed for future requirements.

A Growing Demand For Digital Skills

According to a Robert Half survey, 67% of IT managers want to expand their teams in cloud computing and security, yet 89% indicated they are having a tough time recruiting for those skills. The market is extremely competitive to acquire talent as the range of skills and experience needed is broad and difficult to find in any single individual. At the same time, the skills needed to execute a cloud strategy are rapidly evolving and changing, almost daily. 

Many organizations are quick to look outside their companies to fill skill gaps. However, it’s difficult to find the right talent and skill sets needed for digital transformation. There is an opportunity to reskill individuals from within the organization to meet the skill demands needed to execute strategies for digital transformation. 

In addition, there are substantial cost savings from employee retention and internal mobility. The cost of replacing a mid-level employee can cost 20% of their annual salary. In other words, an employee making $60,000 per year costs approximately $12,000 to replace.

Replacing a high-level employee can cost up to 213% of their annual salary, meaning a C-suite executive making $100,000 per year costs up to $213,000 to replace. From recruiting costs, onboarding expenses, indirect costs of lost productivity and severance pay, the costs of replacing employees is significant. 

With that said, many organizations lack a clear understanding of the skills and capabilities of their workforces at an individual, department or company-wide level. Vice versa, many employees also lack an understanding of available positions and career opportunities within their organizations. 

Reskilling To Meet Demands Of Digital Transformation

Advanced technologies can make the internal mobility and reskilling process efficient and effective. Specifically, there are methodologies that allow organizations to easily access workforce data at a skill level. Quantum labor analysis, a concept devised by my company, applies artificial intelligence to analyze a workforce at its most granular level.

As a result, organizations can analyze and assess their workforce’s skills and capabilities, identify skill gaps, future and emerging skills and skill adjacencies, and create reskilling pathways for employees.

Reskilling democratizes the process of skill discovery and career pathway planning as employees are able to see where they fit in any role across the organization and see a clear pathway to get there. In addition, it is important to give employees easy access to targeted training to acquire the skills needed to achieve their career progression goals.

This process transforms how employees perceive and understand career progression within the organization, allowing for more internal mobility and increased employee engagement and retention. 

Conclusion

With digital transformation accelerating at a rapid pace, many skills and occupations are being displaced; however, at the same time, it’s creating new opportunities. The challenge for organizations is preparing their workforces with the needed skills to meet demands and future requirements of digital transformation.

Organizations should look within to individuals who could be reskilled to meet these demands to retain employees and create internal mobility while bridging skill gaps. Not only will this result in cost savings, but it’s also a human-first approach that engages and empowers employees to fulfill their career goals within the organization.

Source: Forbes