Current and Future Leadership

Upskilling and Reskilling

Classes Start Every 8 Weeks

Be Purposeful About Supporting Continual Learners

You’ve taken the time to cultivate a team and culture that exemplifies your brand and promise to your customers. But retaining and developing your high potentials might not be as simple as one would hope. You might offer them some internal training programs and/or they attend industry conferences, but that’s not enough to meet your needs in a fast-paced market.

Fostering continual skill development and refresher opportunities can help your team stay current on relevant skills and keep pace with today's tech-driven ecosystem. This continual development or evolution is what is called upskilling, reskilling and even cross-skilling.

If you’re wondering what benefits reskilling and upskilling can bring to your team, we've assembled a quick guide through the following sections:

Let’s talk about skills gaps

Why Upskill and Reskill?

First, let’s breakdown the difference. When your critical talent needs new skills to help them attack a future role or you have them earmarked for growth potential—upskilling can be beneficial.

When you reskill, you’ve pinpointed some potential candidates to move into another department or function because they might have competencies that would make them great options for those roles. You’re providing a learning pathway for them to skill up on the skills they need for this new role/department.

Here are some potential benefits of reskilling and upskilling:

Retain your high potentials

If these people were to leave, it would be a loss for your organization. But if you’re supporting their career through continual development, it can be a strong incentive for them to stay.
Maintain your culture

You’ve worked hard to hire good people that together create a culture you’re proud of. If you have people that really believe in what you’re doing and feel a sense of belonging, it benefits you to see them grow and develop alongside your company.
Build a diverse team

By giving educational opportunities to underrepresented talent, you’re helping to lift a common barrier to their growth.
Keeps roles from becoming obsolete

Keeping up with the pace of innovation is challenging for any company, as well as its people. By recognizing trends and creating learning pathways, you’re giving team members the skills they need to continue to evolve with your company.

When you embrace upskilling and reskilling, you offer your team meaningful opportunities for personal and professional development. Still, the benefits go beyond that. You also show your employees that you’re invested in their future, which may motivate them to remain with the company long term.

How to Upskill and Reskill?

If you need assistance with a reskilling or upskilling program, you’re in the right place. The first step is to look at the industry trends for skills needed on your team in the short- and long-term, then cross-reference those with the current skills on your team. By identifying these discrepancies or skills gaps, you can more directly target your education efforts for maximum efficiency.

With this new knowledge, you can begin to build your talent succession plan. Your plan includes your people and their goals, as well as the learning pathways needed to help close your team’s skills gaps.

Explore Programs to Upskill and Reskill

If you’re at a mid-market company, you may be wondering how you’ll begin building these learning pathways towards reskilling and upskilling. That’s where a DeVryWorks consultant can help. We’ll work with you and talk through your goals, skills gaps and industry trends to determine potential programs for your team.

Our programs are designed for meaningful professional development for these teams:

We believe there is power in providing your people with learning opportunities that can develop the skills they need to be able to thrive. Connect with a member of our team to hear more about how reskilling and upskilling can help you build a supported and bright team.