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“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”
– Rahm Emanuel
We have witnessed the impact of COVID-19 (or the coronavirus) across all functions, industries, and geographies. With the recent pandemic, many businesses are being encouraged to send their employees home instead of operating from the office. It also impacts the workplace infrastructure; there is a growing dependency on digital services and remote working. It is difficult to manage in some professions while organizations are coming with new familiar ways to keep operations moving and reduce the effect of the virus on the employees. Today’s businesses are willing to invest more in their employees’ skill-set to keep up with the rapid tread of technology.
With COVID-19 being considered as a threat to people’s jobs, there is an accelerated demand for reskilling and upskilling in areas such as Cloud computing, Data analysis, Cybersecurity, People analytics, Full-stack development, AI/ML, and IoT. As an impact of the pandemic, there is a rise in demand for upskilling courses, such as ITIL foundation certification, that enhance and upgrade the skill-set of employees. The most important change in the learning space is the wide acceptance of online learning. It is considered now as a primary medium rather than to learn with offline training. Online learning is also known as remote learning or distance learning, where employees are learning and completing the course while staying at home.
ILO (International Labour Organization) reports that as job losses are increasing, nearly half of the global workforce is at the risk of losing livelihoods. It also says that almost 25 million jobs were lost worldwide in second quarter of 2020. This critical pandemic reveals the worst effect on workers in the informal economy and millions of enterprises worldwide. Underemployment is also expected to increase on a large scale, as the virus attack outbreaks translate into a reduction in wages and working hours. Unemployment also causes large income losses for workers with a range between USD 860 billion and USD 3.4 trillion by the end of 2020.
Upskilling and Reskilling for the future of work
Upskilling and reskilling is the new currency that can help us succeed as a workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic. As time and situations are unpredictable, there is uncertainty around the future of jobs, the impact of globalization, and advanced technology demands that professionals should upskill or reskill. Employees face new challenges like to keep themselves safe from the virus, making themselves future-proof, and elevating (upskilling and reskilling) their skills to stay in their job.
Below mentioned are a few reasons for upskilling and reskilling employees during this tough pandemic time.
- Increases Productivity- This time is to upgrade the skills with digital competency, that is a fundamental skill now. As the digital world has always been a field of evolution, there is still the need for new and more advanced skill-sets. It increases productivity with new learnings, training, and ideas.
- Future-proof The Business- Upskilling and reskilling can secure and future-proof your business. It can protect businesses from possible market disruptions, so it (upskilling and reskilling) should be the first and foremost step taken for employees.
- Reduces Hiring Costs- Upskilling and Reskilling helps retain top talent and reduces hiring costs that can save money, time, and funds. Top talent can only survive in this new uncertain world, so employees must equip themselves with skills of the future with upskilling and reskilling.
- Cross-Function Teams- Team-work and cross-function working are now more critical than ever. Upskilling and reskilling can help employees to understand cross-functional team roles in the organization better. It will lead to a strong workforce in the organization.
- Motivational Step- Reskilling and upskilling is a motivational step taken for employees. It boosts s employee’s morale level up and engaging their time in a work-from-home arrangement.
As time passes with the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, eLearning has turned out to be the easiest and fastest way of learning in the present condition of world education. It offers learning through a flexible curriculum, high retention of the learning material in memory, and enhanced technological support with 24/7 accessibility. Nowadays it is the best method to learn because it can improve your learning and grades by saving time and money. eLearning is the talk of the day, and it can enhance one’s learning process. Worldwide universities are conducting various online degrees, distance education programs, certification courses, and training in different branches; and learning has become more connected and continued.
Learning efficiency is determined by the time, money, and resources essential to achieve desired results. eLearning has made the learning process better with fewer expenses and less time involved. It has a direct effect on boosting employee’s satisfaction, morale, confidence, and longevity.
A study found that eLearning requires around 50% less time than classroom time/training. It is also observed that retention rates improve from 8-10% for direct training to 25-60% for eLearning. It provides standardized, consistent, and continue training every time. eLearning offers personalized training that makes it possible to cater to personal needs. Learners can choose their path and navigate at their own pace.
Today’s learners want to be personalized and specialized learning/content at their point of need; they prefer accessing content anytime and anywhere. With eLearning, learners can be able to multitasking and can have a limited attention span. COVID-19 pandemic crisis has changed the way of learning. Face-to-face learning has been replaced with eLearning. Almost every university, government, organization, or education system provides online certification courses for continuous learning. So, taking one would definitely help in your career growth.
