Reskilling And Upskilling Is Not A Choice, But A Necessity

July 29, 2021

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Founder, Director of Avaali Solutions Ms. Srividya Kannan speaks to HR.com on why reskilling and upskilling is not a choice, but a necessity.

Most employees will have to transition to jobs requiring new skills.

As of now, the pace of change is both—the fastest it has ever been and the slowest it will ever be. With the ever-evolving technology trends, such as the advances in automation and artificial intelligence, modern businesses need to adapt to the changes, if they want to maintain their competitive advantage while becoming more resilient. It is the only way forward. But the big challenge is how to go about it? A good approach to achieve this can be fostering an environment that helps promote and provide lifelong learning opportunities. As labour intensive jobs are replaced with technologies, most employees in this modern landscape need to transition to jobs requiring new skills, and the number is only increasing day by day. Earlier, we used to focus on developing a specific skillset during the early years of our career, and that was it. It was sufficient for us, and we used to rely on it to carry us to retirement. But now, it is only a thing of the past that is no longer of any use. The same is the case with employers, i.e., they can no longer hire employees with a specific skill set and assume they will fulfil their business needs for years to come. The half-life of skills is shrinking at such a fast speed that it has made continuous education and upskilling a necessity instead of “perk” or employee benefit. Now, they have become important and a business imperative for bot…