What Are the 4 Strategies for Upskilling and Reskilling Your Workforce?

When it comes to employee upskilling and reskilling, there are many ways to approach these undertakings, including specific reskilling and upskilling programs for employees. Let’s take a look at four different strategies you could adopt for upskilling and reskilling your workforce. 

What is difference between reskilling and upskilling?

Before we can discuss how to level up your employees’ skills, let’s first explore the difference between upskilling and reskilling. While both are about growing knowledge and developing new skills, there is a distinction between the two.

Reskilling happens when someone learns new skills outside of their existing skill set. They may reskill with the goal of moving into a job similar to the one they have today, or they may want to develop the skills needed to move into a new field altogether.

Upskilling, on the other hand, happens when someone builds on their existing skill set to grow in their current role. They may upskill because they have identified a personal skills gap, want to feel more confident doing their job, or are looking to advance to a more senior role. And some employees may upskill simply for the love of learning and taking on a new challenge. 

Why reskilling and upskilling is important in the working environment today

We’ve explained the difference between upskilling and reskilling, but some upskilling and reskilling examples may help illustrate the distinction between the two.

Imagine, for instance, a user experience (UX) designer we’ll call Samantha. As a UX designer, she draws on user research, business needs, and her own design knowledge to develop mobile gaming apps that are easy to use and fun to play. She analyzes competitors and creates prototypes of new features to improve the apps.

Now let’s say Samantha wants to take on more responsibilities at her small company. She signs up for some advanced UX certifications to grow her skills in wireframing and user research. Her goal? To use these new credentials and her stellar track record at work to be promoted to a senior UX designer. This would be an example of upskilling. 

Imagine that instead of going for more UX certifications, Samantha develops an interest in coding. She signs up for a coding bootcamp, and after 9 months of studying on the evenings and weekends, she decides to use her new skills to leave UX design and lands a job as a front-end developer. This would be an example of reskilling. 

How to upskill employees

Here are four strategies you might consider when thinking about how to upskill and reskill employees:

• Offer tuition assistance or reimbursement. Providing financial assistance for employees to go back to school can pay dividends for the company. According to a survey commissioned by Strategic Education in 2024, a majority (86%) of business leaders agree that their organization’s tuition assistance program is valuable for the organization.
• Enable networking opportunities. Encourage mentorship between your junior and senior employees. These relationships can be professionally satisfying not just for the mentee, but for the mentor as well.  Offering employees opportunities to try out different departments and roles shows that you’re invested in their growth and development, which can lead to happier, more fulfilled employees.
• Develop career pathways. Employees who see a path for themselves to grow in the organization are more likely to stick around than those who don’t. According to a LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report, companies that excel at internal mobility are able to retain employees for an average of 5.4 years. That’s nearly 2x as long as companies that struggle with it, where the average retention span is 2.9 years.
• Enable networking opportunities. Encourage mentorship between your junior and senior employees. These relationships can be professionally satisfying not just for the mentee, but for the mentor as well. 

If you’re thinking about ways to upskill or reskill your employees, contact us to explore your options.