As an employer, it’s often more cost-effective to upskill your current workforce rather than hiring new employees. This is because of the cost of high staff turnover and recruitment fees. The other added benefit of increasing the skill set of your employees is that they’re more likely to stay with the company. This guide will look at some of the main ways to upskill your workforce.

Upskill constantly and in small ways

Many employers make the mistake of trying to upskill all of their employees at once. Or, they send off valuable employees on week-long training courses, and the business suffers as a result. The way to combat this is to upskill your workforce constantly and in smaller ways. Have regular one-day training courses, offer free time every day for employees to learn, and invite experts into the office to give talks. Utilizing these methods will grow the skills of your employees in a more manageable way. Plus, it is easier to factor into the monthly running costs of the business.

Connect employees with a mentor

You can’t expect your employees to know everything. Many business owners make the mistake of expecting employees to be experts in their fields without giving them the time or training to learn properly. One of the most useful ways to navigate this is to connect employees with a mentor. Mentors can be both internal and external, depending on what is available. The most important thing is that they can offer expert insights that will help your employees be better at their jobs. Mentorship programs are commonplace at the world’s biggest businesses, so perhaps your business should follow suit.

Encourage self-training

Just about anyone can become an expert if they had the time. Ideally, you want your employees to be experts because it will help your business to succeed. However, you can’t expect people to do a full-time job and then train in their own time. Most people are too busy, have too many commitments, and don’t feel motivated to train themselves. That’s why, as an employer, it’s useful to encourage self-training at work. This can be an allotted amount of time every week when employees can do some extra-curricular reading or attend courses – like cloud computing courses –  that will help them with their job.

Use real-life simulations and case studies

People learn in different ways. Some people can read a manual cover-to-cover and understand how something works. Other people need hands-on experience before they can get to grips with something. As an employer or manager, it’s your job to learn how your employees learn and provide training that is centered around that. Using a mixture of real-life simulations and case studies will cover everyone.

Build a learning culture

If you’re serious about upskilling your workforce, you need to build a learning culture in your business. Employees need to be encouraged to learn on a daily basis, and they need to understand why it’s important for them to add value to the business by upskilling. Some businesses employ people specifically to upskill other employees. However, if you run a small business, it will probably have to come from you.