Reskilling: Your Clients May Need Your Advice On Working With This Trend

News articles about the need to reskill American workers seem to be unending.  And the need for reskilling programs is, allegedly, huge. Recently, Jason Wingard, Dean of the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University told LinkedIn that there are three approaches companies can use to deal with this trend: workers fend for themselves in a contractor model, companies invest in keeping their talent on the payroll and up-to-date or governments must take it upon themselves. The concept of moving swaths of the a workforce from employees to contractors may send your head spinning about Plan Documents and discrimination testing. And while your clients are up to their elbows in figuring out reskilling programs, they may rely more heavily on you and your financial advisory services than ever. Here are some key points to know about the reskilling trend.
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The World Economic Forum recently stated that “[a]ccording to the 2018 Future of Jobs Report, 75 million jobs are expected to be displaced by 2022 in 20 major economies. At the same time, technological advances and new ways of working could also create 133 million new roles.” While a net gain of 58 million jobs is exciting, the concept of training even one person to leave their old job and tackle new responsibilities may be harrowing. Even though it’s daunting the need for retraining, and positioning a company to handle that scale of retraining is a necessary one. The World Economic Forum, via the same 2018 report, estimated that “54% of all employees will need reskilling and upskilling by 2022.”
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You might ask why companies can’t move to hire new employees with the requisite skills instead of retraining current employees to take on new tasks? As Randstad, a global recruitment and placement company, stated simply,“Progress is happening so quickly that this approach would mean rehiring too frequently to be viable.”
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What, exactly is reskilling? In a nutshell, a company takes current employees and trains them for the future needs of the organization. For the company, it shortens the hiring and search process. For the employee, it ensures that they continue on at a company with a culture that is a good fit. Upskilling, on the other hand, involves training employees to take on management-like functions but staying in their current positions so that a qualified pool is ready to rise should the need occur.
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While this may seem like something that sounds futuristic, it’s a current, pressing need among companies. According to the Association for Talent Development, 83% of those in a talent development role (like HR Manager or similar) believe that their company had a significant skill gap. That is, their employees’ current skills do not correspond to what they need to meet their goals and position themselves to match customer demand.  
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What is the long-term change that your clients may feel the earliest? It may be in hiring. Randstad, noted above, suggests that companies change their current hiring process to capture potential employees who are most capable of being trained and adaptable. They suggest looking for qualities like enthusiasm and learning capacity.  Randstad also suggests implementing a reskilling policy to ensure that employees are selected and trained in a predictable and rational manner.
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Some companies have taken the idea of a reskilling policy a step further and have begun incorporating reskilling and upskilling programs into their employee benefit programs.  Understanding how this trend may impact employee retention, employee morale and employee benefits can help you meet your clients needs proactively.