The Costs and Benefits of Upskilling and Reskilling

The global workforce is experiencing significant disruption. The future of work involves ongoing automation of routine tasks, robotics throughout the organization, and meaningful commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The COVID-19 pandemic altered the relationship between employees and employers; many workers now demand hybrid or remote opportunities and improved work-life balance.

Demographic Changes Continue to Roil the Employment Landscape

Demographic changes continue to roil the employment landscape. Gen-Z has high expectations for impactful work and career advancement. Meanwhile, Gen-X and Boomers are redefining retirement and looking for reskilling or upskilling opportunities.

A recent analysis by the Korn Ferry consulting firm estimates that 85 million job openings could go unfilled due to a lack of workers who are prepared for the careers of the 21st century. Yet many employers continue to ignore the need for reskilling and upskilling due to both inertia and the perceived cost of investing in learning & development and training.

A report jointly authored by the World Economic Forum and Boston Consulting Group confirms that corporate training for the future workplace is a significant investment. In the United States, for example, it costs approximately $24,800 per person to ensure the acquisition of skills that are fit for purpose and relevant to an era of digital disruption.

However, this upfront cost must be measured against the long-term financial drain associated with recruitment and onboarding efforts. For example, Gallup estimates that a typical firm with 100 employees and an average salary of $50,000 will burn through $660,000 to $2.6 million annually due to turnover and staff replacement costs.

Ergo, improving employee satisfaction through innovative learning and development initiatives could enhance your organizational resilience and agility while boosting staff retention.

Digital Transformation Requires Continuous Upskilling and Reskilling

A McKinsey Global Survey found that the automation revolution will drive the need for an employee training revolution. Indeed, 90 percent of the surveyed executives and managers confirmed that they already struggle with skill gaps or anticipate them by 2025.

Profound changes should be expected across the workplace ecosystem:

1. New industries such as commercial space travel, three-dimensional printing, and cleantech will transform the marketplace while displacing incumbents and business models.
2. A World Economic Forum report on the future of work emphasizes that employees and organizations, to stay competitive, must hone key skills such as active learning, critical thinking and analysis. The same goes for technology use, monitoring, and control skills.
3. Finally, jobs themselves are evolving. McKinsey found that 42 percent of managers perceive the greatest need for talent in data analytics. Twenty-six percent foresee gaps in IT, mobile, and/or web design management. Jobs will also need to be redesigned and traditional career pathways reconfigured.

How We Help

Ongoing technological and economic disruption means that competitive firms must prioritize talent acquisition and maintain a culture of continuous learning within their organizations.

Edflex’s world-leading platform provides tools that enable you to incentivize your employees to become lifelong learners.

Here are eight key reasons why Edflex is both cost-effective and educationally effective:

1. Our curated content means that you do not have to invest time and effort into designing new learning modules. We deliver the best material and put it within easy reach of your employees.
2. Our platform is an SaaS solution that you can easily integrate into your existing L&D infrastructure
3. Edflex integrates with the tools your employees use every day including Microsoft Teams, Google Chrome, and Slack
4. We ensure that our learning content is updated continuously to harness the best information available today so you don’t have to worry
5. The platform’s built-in analytics capacity lets you monitor what is working best for your employees and stack content in those key areas.
6. Edflex empowers your employees to develop self-directed learning skills that are crucial to the modern workplace. Our approach is driven by quality, but it also emphasizes staff engagement, fun, and personalization.
7. By empowering functional leaders to put learning content in the hands of employees and use as par tof their daily managing and coaching, engagement and outcomes skyrocket
8. Offering local content in 7 languages including live chat support for your employees means you don’t have to rely on poorly translated content or content that does not resonate with all your employees

Think of Edflex as your in-house global learning and development content team but at one fraction of the cost and none of the hassle.

Edflex provides customers with qualified curated learning content that is continuously evaluated, updated, and refreshed. Our customers benefit from 7 Learning Domains, 30 Subdomains, 7 Languages, 5 Formats, and localized learning content in 7 different languages. Our personalized learning options help your learners and leaders prioritize learning at the time of need.