AI Upskilling Strategies: How to Retain Employees and Avoid Layoffs
In the last few years, we have moved from a labor shortage to a market that favors employers, particularly in some areas like tech. However, one thing has remained constant throughout this time - the need for workers to upskill.
With the rise of AI tools, upskilling has moved from a nice-to-have that many companies trimmed from budgets to an absolute must-have. Plus, different forms of upskilling and training can be used to minimize layoffs at your business.
Upskilling, Retraining, and Cross-Training: What They Mean
First, let’s define a few terms:
Upskilling
Upskilling refers to layering additional skills on an already existing skill set. For example, a salesperson might learn to use a new piece of sales technology or a new sales technique.
Cross-Training
Cross-training is the process of learning skills similar to the ones you already have but that may be used in another department. In this case, the salesperson may learn how to use marketing analytics or create their own sales presentations, which the marketing team or admin support may have done for them in the past.
Retraining
Retraining is when you train someone for a completely different role unrelated to their role at your company.
Upskilling and Retraining to Avoid Layoffs
With the employment landscape changing, upskilling may have another use: helping to limit employee layoffs. If a staff member’s role has been deemed redundant, consider retraining them for a new position at the company rather than laying them off completely. This is the best financial move for all parties since the company won’t lose out on years of training and experience, and the employee can feel supported.
To succeed, the staff member usually needs a skill set that will tangentially apply to the new position. Vidby, for example, solved the problem of laying off a QA specialist by retraining them as a project manager.
Non-lateral moves between departments like accounting and marketing are less likely to succeed but are not impossible if the employee is willing to retrain in a new field. They still have extensive company knowledge and relationships, even if they don’t have the required skill set - this is generally contrary to the challenges you would face with a new hire and often means a quicker ramp.
In some cases, the employee may have to take a pay cut, which can be made more attractive if you give them a contract to employ them for a specific period and promise to restore their old position should it become available again. Pay cuts without reassurances are unlikely to be accepted without the employee disengaging and looking for a new position.
If you’re using our employee productivity monitoring solution, Prodoscore, you can quickly see how your team member is doing in their new position. Are they reaching out for help? Collaborating with others? Spending time on training tools? Prodoscore produces a sophisticated dataset of workforce analytics without being invasive; it just monitors online activity in the cloud.
Upskilling and AI Training to Avoid Layoffs
Businesses have long favored getting rid of long-serving employees with high salaries and replacing them with less experienced employees with new, more current skills. While this may look positive from a bottom-line perspective, losing employees with so much company knowledge puts your business at a disadvantage.
However, this concept has never been more attractive. Younger employees who are newer to the workforce are much more likely to be using AI to do their work, making them far more efficient than long-serving workers without that kind of technical experience.
In cases where no other factors are involved in laying someone off besides having these new skills, it is more advantageous to the company to train existing workers. In many cases, the technologies you use, such as Google or Microsoft, have free courses and even certifications for their AI products.
The Importance of Constant Upskilling
Staff with access to employee upskilling programs consider them a significant benefit, particularly in a labor market where they may have to look for a new job. In a better market, it’s a way to climb the corporate ladder by being more engaged and educated.
Gloat, an HR technology company, offers several ways to implement an upskilling program, including:
- Setting goals for skill building for specific periods of time, such as quarterly or annually
- Consistently provide learning opportunities, especially for AI tools like ChatGPT
- Making upskilling a core component of each role
Monitoring Time Spent in Training Tools
With Prodoscore, you can monitor the adoption of training tools, making uptake easy to measure. Visualize how often they access those tools, whether reluctant to try them or overly reliant on training versus testing. Armed with that data, managers and employees can make smarter decisions about where to focus their energies when learning or teaching new skills.
