As your business grows, you’ll need to fill dozens of positions, including leadership positions. Upskilling your team for leadership is vital because it will make your job easier, help your business scale, and ensure the best possible customer service.
It costs a lot more to hire and train new employees and especially managers. Research by SHRM suggests that replacement costs can be as high as 50%-60% with overall costs ranging anywhere from 90%-200% to hire a new employee vs keeping and grooming a current employee.
As it turns out, you don’t need to go outside your company to find those leaders. Instead, you can focus on upskilling: teaching and investing in your existing employees to ensure they have the skills they need to thrive in a leadership role.
In this blog, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about upskilling your team and how to execute it properly within your operation.
What is Upskilling?
Upskilling has become a popular workplace trend in recent years, and for a good reason.
Instead of forcing business owners to search endless pools of talent to find the people they need, upskilling focuses on facilitating continuous learning via training programs and development opportunities.
Effective upskilling seeks to improve the skill set of your current employees so they can climb the ladder within your organization, advance in their jobs, and take advantage of unique roles and opportunities within your company.
5 Benefits of Upskilling Your Team
Why should you implement upskilling in your organization? Here are a few of the top benefits of this approach:
1. Increased Employee Retention and Satisfaction
Employee retention is one of the biggest battles for many companies. Today, an estimated 30% of employees leave a position within three months, costing 33% of an employee’s annual wage to replace them.
Fortunately, one of the easiest ways to increase your company’s bottom line is to improve your employee retention rates. In fact, companies with high employee retention enjoy quadruple the profit!
This is where the upskilling comes in.
When you invest in your employees’ education and skill development, you boost their commitment and attachment to your organization. When team members feel like essential players in your organization’s future, staying with you suddenly becomes one of their most attractive career options.
2. Cost-Savings By Reducing Turnover
In addition to reducing your employee turnover rate, upskilling can help you cut costs. Currently, experts estimate that it costs about 1.5x-2x an employee’s annual salary to replace missing talent.
When you invest in upskilling rather than outside hiring, you don’t have to worry about struggling with long-standing vacancies, training inexperienced new hires, or losing your most valuable team members.
Instead, upskilling allows you to groom your existing employees and identify and fill current skills gaps in your organization.
3. Nurtures A Learning Culture
There’s no way around it: your top employees want to learn, grow, and improve their skills. Fortunately, companies that invest in upskilling creates a learning culture within their organization. Many times, it will provide you with a competitive advantage in your market as you become an in-demand employer for people who want the opportunity to advance within their organization.
Currently, 60% of CEOs say upskilling programs positively impact their company culture. The same CEOs, coincidentally, report more confidence in their revenue and a stronger sense of community within their organizations.
4. Improved Productivity and Efficiency
Increased productivity is one of the most significant benefits of investing in an upskilling program. For your employees to be as productive as possible, they must operate efficiently. To do that, they must be as educated and skilled as possible.
Luckily, offering an upskilling program helps them do just that.
While the benefits of upskilling are best seen in the long-term, there’s no doubt that committing to an ongoing upskilling program will help your team be more competitive, productive, and efficient.
5. Increased Customer Satisfaction
Last but not least, upskilling improves your customer satisfaction rates. Happy employees generate happy clients.
When your trainers are educated, invested in their future, and excited about working with you, they’ll provide better, more customized service to your clients.
When your front desk staff is excited to come to work every day, they’ll greet each member who walks in with warmth and a smile.
Bottom line: the more you invest in your employees, the more they’ll give back to you and your clients.
Your Quick Guide to Effective Upskilling
Want to build an effective upskilling program in your organization? Follow these tips:
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Empower Your Employees
- To kick off your upskilling program, identify a few people in your organization who seem exceptionally dedicated to growth and upward mobility.
- Once you’ve identified those employees, empower them to engage with and advance their own careers.
- There are dozens of ways to do this, including online self-service learning centers, tailored classes, formal training programs, and other skill development platforms.
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Implement Employee Feedback
- As you develop your upskilling program, ask for employee feedback and then be sure to implement it.
- The mission of upskilling is to make employees feel as integral and valued as possible, and utilizing their feedback is one of the best ways to do this.
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Identify Clear Paths For Progression
- For some employees, upskilling can feel like a long road – especially if they want to go from an entry-level to a managerial position.
- To keep these employees engaged and excited, provide a clear roadmap that outlines the process.
- These employees should know exactly how long it will take them to get from A to B, what milestones they’ll need to meet along the way, and what qualifies as “good” progress.
Upskilling: The Future of Effective Business Management
As a franchise owner, your job is to keep your employees engaged, excited, and invested in your company. Fortunately, upskilling your team is an excellent way to do this.
By investing in the employees you already have, rather than seeking outside talent, upskilling allows you to scale your business, invest in the people who help you run it, and provide excellent service to your clients.
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