A good training program is a good investment. Acquiring new skills has become crucial, and so it needs to go with the current trends in technology. For all of us, the last year went into identifying AI and sipping coffee over whether AI could replace our jobs, and that made us realize that no, it is making our jobs easier. While on an everyday basis we talk about skilling and reskilling and being ready for a new job and project, I’ve realized personally that each tech professional should have at least two AI tech tools in hand and not just to use, but to be well versed in the workspace, which make my work easy and B help me learn things quicker than when it comes in the newspapers.

With upskilled workforces being of utmost importance, businesses have become responsible for making sure the training programs are also up to par with the newest technologies.

The revolution of Gemini and ChatGPT – which is making the job easy for students and working professionals to a wide Target audience – has been a wake-up call for the workforce. This just shows that better opportunities can be created if you know how to use them well.

Similarly, for organizations, the average half-life of skills is now less than five years, and for a lot of tech fields, it's less than that. Now, imagine the need to learn a new technology every single year. Ofcourse, by simply understanding that AI can simplify their jobs in the years ahead, many of them may well discover that AI has significantly altered the nature of how they can eradicate manual work in completely new fields.

Upskilling isn't just enough - Reskilling is a new nature.

Recently read through a BCG study that mentioned that skilling investments represent as much as 1.5% of those organizations’ total budgets, but their target is simply not just upskilling. Based on the study estimates, IT workforces agree that millions of employees in IT should be entirely reskilled. When a recession hits, the markets fall apart, and client projects are at stake, IT firms often move to complete reskilling to create a positive PR narrative.

Several companies are following this approach in the revolution of AI, too. Infosys, for instance, aimed to reskill more than 2000 Experts in Cybersecurity with different competencies and capability levels.

Recently, Vodafone also envisioned drawing from the internal workforce and reskilling them on AI to fill 40% of their software development projects. And ofcourse, there is Amazon, with its Machine Learning University, has enabled their workforce in the field of ML consistently.

When it comes to BFSI, organizations are using reskilling for their bigger talent pools, especially for candidates who might not be considered the right fit for the job. ICICI Bank—enabled the reskilling of more than 130,000 employees and ran a heavy training program for reskilling that prepares freshers for frontline managerial jobs.

Reskilling in the realm of AI for skills taxonomy.

Organizations must truly understand the need for skill taxonomy for capabilities in each unit of the company, and only then can one easily understand supply and demand. Earlier, firms used to put a lot of effort into creating these taxonomies from scratch, and the pattern is being repeated now. HSBC, for example, has taken into consideration a taxonomy published by the World Economic Forum and customized it based on its needs. The next task for organizations should be to decide which skills should be mapped to which jobs and what alignment of AI tools can simplify manual tasks. It prevents excessive hiring and better employee retention as employees are keen to learn. Reskilling programs require employees and organizations to make a major investment of time so it’s crucial to try to reduce the revenue leakages, time, and effort involved by introducing AI on a larger scale for learning for your employees based on the skills taxonomy.

Then should follow the task of building the right skills and learning in the everyday flow of work.

1. Employees will never ace AI and reduce the manual work in a classroom training program, and hence that should happen in the everyday flow of work. In a 2021 BCG survey, 65% of the 209,000 participating employees said they prefer to acquire learning on the job. Hence, the best approach for reskilling would be to have a hands-on training partner that can help your employees in simulation-style training to bring Project Ready.

2. Encourage Workshops and Hackathons for the workforce that focus on GenAI and newer AI-based learning that will encourage the employees to proactively use AI in everyday work.

3. It is never going to matter the revenue you put into your skilling techniques unless it gives you value, saves you costs, and brings more projects. Consider it imperative to invest in training programs that aren't classroom specific and give your workforce the liberty to work on Guided Projects that are similar to your client projects, enable them to participate in Assessments, and measure the learning, which shall also enable your organization to make the right decisions.

Lastly, since it's about AI, treat your employees as your partners in learning and taking your business ahead. Organizational disruptions and challenges often lead to leaders not being completely open about the opportunities that are missing. Employees will be more likely and willing to reskill themselves if they understand the requirements from a client’s point of view.

In the rapidly evolving world of AI, many companies have an intuitive understanding of the need to embrace the reskilling paradigm shifts and make better decisions of getting tailormade training programs from reskilling- and project-readiness-based organizations that can understand the shift with the accelerating pace of technological change and can help you create a hands-on training program that is experimental, skill-validating and long-term. From the many training-specific investments that are being made today, make the right one when choosing the correct reskilling partner.

(The author is Head of Marketing - Nuvepro Technologies)