The incredible explosion of mobile and digital technologies in the last few decades have completely altered the ways in which humans behave and interact with each other. Today, almost every major company leverages technological developments in one way or another, and the ever-increasing use of internet-enabled devices has had a huge impact on how those businesses get work done.

While technology is quickly transforming how we run processes, work with data, and interact with customers, many employees—and the enterprises where they work—are having difficulty keeping up with the changes that lie ahead.  There’s no question that the evolving tech may displace some jobs, it will also create new roles to meet the demands for human soft skills to supplement machine learning. Hence, re-skilling existing employees to augment the contributions of AI and machine learning has become the need of the hour for employers. Employees hoping to stay relevant will need to actively engage in life-long learning, whether those opportunities are offered through their employers, or not.

Developing robust re-skilling and up-skilling opportunities for current employees is quickly becoming a critical imperative for businesses seeking to remain competitive and to keep up with next generation digital technologies. For businesses, it has become vital to “re-skill” to stay on pace with the automation of processes and crucial to equip current employees with necessary resources. To do this, enterprises must establish a congenial and agile work framework that enables and encourages quick adoption by employees.

It is also right to say that the career development market is burgeoning among re-starters. The increasing job-seeking population is driving the demand for industry relevant training as there is a skills gap that needs to be bridged. The need to re-skill these workers and make them part of the workforce provides a huge opportunity for organizations looking to grow.

As organizations seek to provide opportunities for career development for current employees, there are a few things HR leaders might want to consider. Here are four tips for making your career development initiatives a success:

 Key components for a successful knowledge sharing programme 

1. Regular training program–Begin by partnering with outside experts who can help develop multi-level programs and provide guidelines to best practices for beginning a learning and development program. Getting advice and direction from known experts in the industry provides a sense of assurance to the employees that re-skilling is an option to a better future. Knowing that the methodology being used to provide career development has already been proven to work, encourages employees to engage fully in the process.
2. Easy access to re-skilling material– The most successful programs allow flex-learning, allowing employees to learn at their own pace alongside their busy work commitments. To ensure engagement, choose learning programs that allow your employees the ability to learn and refer to the course material anywhere and anytime at their own convenience—even when they are on the go. Look for online courses that deliver content in short durations and allow employees to learn quickly within a short period of time.
3. What company leaders can do– Assessing the skills and capabilities of the current workforce against the capabilities that will be required to meet company goals in the future, and creating a real-time system that helps monitor progress over time is important. The idea here is to identify gaps so that the leaders can help individuals focus on specific areas to re-skill or up-skill.
4. Taking ownership– Assessing the continuous learning mindset of an employee is very important for any organization to be successful. A commitment to adopting new skillsets will help employees succeed in the future. Encourage employees to take ownership of their own learning and development and to adopt a more entrepreneurial approach to their careers. Give your employees ownership by allowing them to determine their own paths to success.

Organisational led re-skilling programs build atmospheres where people can pay attention to their current jobs while thinking creativity about future growth opportunities for themselves and the organisations for which they work. While change and learning new skills may sound a little intimidating at first, it is the only way for employees to survive and companies to thrive in today’s fast-paced technology-driven world.

(Joel Paul is General Manager, RiseSmart India)