How can upskilling boost your career?

With technological advances becoming more and more a part of private companies and public entities, it is essential that employees keep up with them. That is why they have been part of Upskilling programs.

As technology becomes more advanced and is proliferated through all companies, it is also necessary for employees to reassess their skills and gain new skills.

In Portugal, many employees still do not have the ideal technological skills to keep up with the digitization of companies and organizations. On the other hand, for companies whose employees already work with technology, it is necessary for them to keep up with each advance in order to stay in tune with both the sector’s market and the labour market.

That’s why many companies bet on upskilling programs, or even reskilling. By providing their employees with new skills, they will not be stagnant, and the entity will be able to stay competitive.

In this article we will review what upskilling programs are and how they can boost careers.

What is upskilling?

Upskilling is, in its essence, a continuous training program that most companies have been investing in. This program focuses on gaining new skills within the same area in which a person already operates. In this way, employees can keep their knowledge up to date to better perform a function and always manage to be in line with current market trends.

However, upskilling programs can be related to both technical skills and soft skills. Thus, employees can attend training related to new software that will be implemented within the company, revive knowledge considering the function they occupy or have training that helps them to optimize their time.

Nowadays, companies like PrimeIT bet on upskilling programs in order to value their employees. By providing continuous training, they manage to give employees the necessary tools to progress in their careers and, consequently, retain talent. Furthermore, by working with more qualified employees, companies can grow and reaffirm their value in the sector in which they provide services.

Upskilling vs reskilling

While upskilling only deals with reformulating outdated skills, reskilling is more complex. This is also a training program, but it focuses on training an employee for another function, even within the same department.

Reskilling programs exist in order to restructure a department or even the company, without having to cut ties with workers. On the other hand, there are companies that bet on a reskilling program to leverage specific skills of an employee so that he integrates into a new team and feels professionally fulfilled.

Between choosing a company that bets more on reskilling or upskilling, employees should ask themselves if they want to change jobs or if they intend to have continuous training within the job they like to do. It should be noted that, normally, companies only invest in reskilling when an employee is already performing functions in that entity.

PrimeIt, for example, makes use of both types of training programs. As for the upskilling programs, there are constant technical courses and soft skills training that employees can take advantage of whenever they want and have no associated costs. The reskilling program, however, happens punctually. To do so, it is necessary that a vacancy opens in a department, that one of the employees wants to change careers, and that they have some propensity for the vacancy they want to occupy.

The importance of upskilling in career development

Upskilling is a win-win situation. Employees feel professionally accomplished and companies become more resistant to rapid changes in the market.

But, while companies make the financial effort, employees gain more skills to progress in their careers inside or outside the company that invested in their training. Thus, upskilling brings numerous benefits to employees:

Greater adaptability to new technologies, new work models and the labor market itself.
Constant updating of technical skills.
Greater possibility of career progression.
Improvement of their work performance, based on training related to soft skills.
Improved relationship with the employing company and, consequently, greater job satisfaction.