Rapid Re-Skilling of Your Employees for a New Economy (cont.)

Step Three: Develop and implement a strategy to fill the gaps – FAST!

If weathering the recession has taught us anything, it’s that speed is everything. In today’s environment, resources are scarce and the competitive environment is more challenging and unforgiving than ever. Speed to competency is critical. At this stage, it is time to quickly move to determine a way to re-skill your employees to meet the demands of the new marketplace.

There are several approaches for rapid re-skilling of your employees. The one (or combination) you choose is entirely dependent on your company’s unique circumstances and priorities. The following represent a few of the strategies:

• Re-training using your internal training staff

While this approach has many advantages and is predictable and safe, consider the current capacity of your internal training staff. Are there other “business as usual” priorities that can not be ignored such as compliance training, new hire orientation, etc.? Will this approach be fast enough for you to keep pace with your competition? Do your internal trainers have a firm grasp of the new skills needed? Is there instructional design capability and capacity available?

• Augment your training staff with external contract trainers and utilize internal staff as master trainers to conduct train-the-trainer sessions.

Depending on budget considerations, this approach can have many advantages – particularly with regard to speed to implement and the ability to touch multiple geographic regions simultaneously. The key is to carefully select external trainers who are not only skilled facilitators, but also have some familiarity with your type of industry.

• Utilize distance learning techniques

Depending on the targeted skills, distance learning can be an effective and speedy approach to re-skilling. If the content is related to transferring knowledge of new processes, policies or use of a new system, tools such as Webex, GoToMeeting, Live Meeting, etc. can be very useful. Employees from multiple geographic locations can all attend a single webinar and hear the same message simultaneously without travel expense and with minimal time away from the job. Once again, a determination should be made as to whether to utilize internal staff of contract staff for delivery of webinars.

• Leverage eLearning Technology

Today, rapid design and development of eLearning has become a reality. There are a number of considerations to determine if eLearning is the right approach. Does the content require practice, observation, coaching and feedback as would be the case with many interpersonal skills? If so, eLearning may not be the best choice. Other considerations such as stability of content, bandwidth, computer skills of your target group all need to be factored into your decision as to whether or not to use an eLearning approach.

Today’s learning technologies offer a number of innovative approaches to developing skills that may not have been available in the past.

The key to ensuring that your company not only continues to survive, but also grows and thrives in the new economy is to recognize that there have been fundamental changes. With those changes, it is critical to take a careful look at your employees’ skill sets, assess the skill gaps and quickly move to equip them with new skills to excel in a new economic climate rich with opportunities.