What’s Trending: Upskilling

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The only constant in life is change, and change is constantly coming to the labor market. Upskilling, reskilling, and learning new skills are by itself a much-needed skill to remain competitive in an ever-changing landscape. 

Read this short article on what different business publications have to say about upskilling and learning in 2024.

Harvard Business Review

Mike Kehoe, a cofounder of BitTiger, wrote a piece for the Harvard Business Review about the habits of those who are always learning new skills or reskilling. He talks about how there’s an uptick each January in new learners, but studies show that about 40% to 80% drop out of online classes. The thing is that the people who do complete their courses report career benefits by 72%.

So, what makes the difference between those who do and those who don’t? Well, Kehoe has a theory that focuses on four main habits that make all the difference in cultivating the eagerness to learn.

“Learning is a career-long process. After you achieve one big goal, set your sights on the next one. That’s how you make learning a part of your normal routine.”

The first thing to do is to focus on the emerging skill set. That is to look for the skills that leaders are hiring for. To find them, don’t just search for what X position does; look at the job postings and find the hottest skills; and reach out to people on LinkedIn with this job to ask them if there’s any course or certification that they can suggest.

The second thing is multitask learning. Try to get as many courses as possible without burning out or falling into the “sense of isolation” that some people report. The author suggests having live courses with a teacher where you can work with others to improve learning.

The third habit is to implement the learning. To maintain what you learned, it is important actually to use it. Find practical cases to get out of theory land. The last habit is to have a reachable goal. Don’t tire yourself out without actually having a clear achievement, so aim for a new job, a promotion, a raise, or whatever you need for career achievement.

Indeed

In a piece sponsored by the Harvard Business School, LinkedIn published a piece on how to upskill a career in 2024. They came up with five different ways to help advance your career.

They first note learning how to use AI to your job’s advantage. According to their AI at Work report, only 20% are considered to be highly exposed by this new technology. Maggie Hulce, executive vice president and general manager for Job Seeker at Indeed, predicts that AI isn’t likely to replace jobs entirely, but indubitably, change is coming for every job. Instead, they suggest learning how to use AI to be ahead of the curve and ready for change.

“Change can be scary, but it also means we can learn new ways of working. Hopefully, as our work evolves, it will end up being more fulfilling work—increasingly work that only humans can do.” 

The second point is the same as the first one in the HBR article. That is, learn what you need to upskill by looking for the skills that you need at a particular job or position and trying to work on them.

The third one is to build your soft skills. Soft skills can be defined as those that we can’t easily measure. There’s no objective metric for leadership or teamwork, and yet these skills are transferable across industries and trades and can’t be imitated by AI.

After that, they recommend taking a course. Lastly, you should really reflect on why you’re trying to upskill.

World Economic Forum

On the other hand, according to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report, there is a race to upskill before 23% of jobs completely change in the next five years, according to Pooja Chhabria and Natalie Marchant.

They interviewed leaders and prominent figures who came up with six business policy approaches to help workers in this evolving landscape.

1. Use generative AI to close gaps

2. Place more attention on skills

3. Support employees through frontline managers

4. Make partnerships to boost reskilling

5. Make collaborations with the public sector

6. Invest in people as they do in tech

“The world is proliferating new skills and new knowledge every day. That is not just requiring workers to catch up from a skill acquisition standpoint; it’s starting – to use a computing analogy – to really stretch the bus or the bandwidth of our ability to compute as human beings.”

 This meeting highlighted that even if new technology fundamentally changes how we work, people are still the greatest asset of any company as they are the true innovators. The skills needed in a new job market are there; businesses just have to be aware enough of what they need to ask their employees for.

The takeaway

People are capable and eager to learn new skills in this changing world, but bad habits or a lack of time can hinder them from upskilling. Following productivity advice and strategies can help workers learn new skills in a realistic timeframe as long as they have a set clear goal in mind. Companies can help with the rising demand for more skilled workers in any field by defining and giving time and tools to upskill or reskill their workforce.