Need for Reskilling Amidst Technological Disruptions – Times of India

By Mr. Arun Kabra Chief Financial Officer & President – Enterprise Business, Times Professional Learning

For India to become a $5 trillion economy by 2025, there needs to be a renewed focus on reskilling and upskilling the country’s workforce to ensure that supply can meet the demand for talent. Industry 4.0 is ushering in a new era of technological transformation and will propel India’s economy to unforeseen heights.

One day in 1960, a machine the size of a room was installed at NASA for performing calculations that humans were supposed to handle. Dorothy Vaughan, an African American mathematician, who managed a group of women mathematicians working for the U.S. space programme, learned about the newly installed IBM computer and how it was supposed to replace her team. So, she decided to hit the library and train herself on IBM’s programming language FORTRAN. After learning the language, she also taught her team. Thus, by reskilling herself and her employees, she managed to save their jobs. She then went on to become an expert programmer, working with NASA until she retired. Dorothy Vaughan’s story is an inspiring account of how important the role reskilling can play in our lives.

Fast-forward to today, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution has paved the way for disruptive changes across the globe. To navigate these tectonic shifts, organisations must embrace change and make reskilling a part of their internal processes. Professionals, too, must look beyond the skills they possess today and pay attention to the demands of tomorrow. The nature of jobs and skill requirements in Industry 4.0 is constantly evolving. Thus, reskilling plays an essential role in the modern age. In simple words, reskilling refers to learning initiatives that train people in new skills that enable them to transition into a new job within a business.

Internal Reskilling Boosts Retention, Benefits Organisations

As change becomes constant, so will be continuous learning. Beyond the competitive advantage that reskilling gives employees is a growing awareness amongst businesses and recruiters that talent is scarce. From an organisational point of view, there are many benefits to reskilling. By promoting a culture of continual learning, taking advantage of immersive educational technologies, and constantly evaluating the success of learning initiatives, a company can increase its retention rate and add to workers’ skillsets while improving their job experience.

Furthermore, when training new employees, companies are not only training for specific roles, but they are also training people about how the company works. Reskilling initiatives allow organisations to hold on to the employees who possess the kind of institutional knowledge that can’t always be as easily taught. Thus, reskilling is a great tool for internal mobility. It can increase collaboration between departments and speed up the adoption of new trends within the company.

According to a McKinsey report, 62% of executives reported that they will need to retrain or replace more than 25% of their employees by as soon as 2023. Therefore, it is no surprise that upskilling, and reskilling is the top priority for 59% of L&D pros globally.

Fig- Importance of Reskilling in today’s world

Reskilling Adds New Dimensions to Professionals’ Growth

As per the World Economic Forum, the rapid acceleration of automation and economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic will lead to 85 million jobs being displaced and 97 million new ones created by 2025. As such, no less than 54% of all employees will require significant reskilling and upskilling by as soon as 2022.

For working professionals, reskilling has plenty of benefits that allow them to navigate the volatile business landscape in the post-pandemic world. In addition, several executive education programmes have allowed working executives to get out of their comfort zone, future proof their careers against technological disruptions, remain competitive, discover a new professional passion, improve productivity, take on new responsibilities, and accelerate career progression.

Today, we’re faced with some of the biggest challenges and disruptions of the 21st century. And amidst such a paradigm, those who learn to evolve, adapt, and drive change will lead the future of work.

TPL Bridging India Inc’s Reskilling Drive

India’s ed-tech sector has witnessed phenomenal growth in the last five years. The signs are ripe that India Inc is moving towards an endeavour of life-long learning, hence signalling a massive opportunity for India’s educational institutes and ed-tech companies to reinvent learning and meet the reskilling demands of the workforce.

At Times Professional Learning (TPL), we provide varied solutions for organisations to upskill and reskill talent with the necessary skillsets to navigate the omnipresent economic uncertainties and technological disruptions in Industry 4.0. We modulate every step of the employee reskilling journey to create a customised learning experience, including designing and developing learning assets, training and mentoring, simulations, and on-the-job training. We have collaborated with top institutions like the IIMs, the IITs and leading B Schools to offer executive education programmes and state-of-the-art enterprise learning solutions for organisations across various sectors and executive education for working professionals.

As India inches closer towards its dream of becoming a $5 trillion economy, reskilling initiatives by universities and ed-tech companies will play an important role to facilitate the growth of the economy. The time is ripe for India to drive the global economy by fostering a culture of continuous professional learning and skill development within organisations and building competencies for our working professionals.