School of PE Blog

The success of any organization is directly related to the strength of your team. Providing your employees with ongoing training boosts productivity, ensures the retention of top performers, and lays the groundwork for a culture that values professional growth and development. It is imperative that employees acquire the appropriate skills for their own growth as well as the benefit of the company. Once acquired, they must also have ample opportunities to apply those skills.

So, where do you begin? Upskilling, reskilling, and cross-skilling are effective methods to help employees broaden their skill sets and achieve personal and organizational objectives. Although these strategies are similar, they are utilized differently to build on your team's existing expertise.

In this guide, we will discuss upskilling, reskilling, and cross-skilling, the benefits of each, and how they can ultimately help you develop a more proficient, better-functioning team. We'll also identify strategies to implement training using readily available resources.

Upskilling is a means for employees to gain new skills that will help them in their current roles and beyond. This type of training increases their competency level, so they are better qualified to take on new tasks and responsibilities. Upskilling should be an ongoing process that allows employees to quickly adapt to both organizational and industry changes.

Some benefits of upskilling include:

Such training ultimately provides your employees with essential growth and development opportunities while also supporting your business objectives.

Reskilling involves training employees to learn new skills either to transition into a different role within the organization or to meet the changing demands in their existing role. This may occur when their previous responsibilities become obsolete due to technological advancements or skill gaps. Reskilling is often preferable to hiring new talent and reduces training and hiring costs.

Some benefits of reskilling include:

As employees take on new tasks and responsibilities, they must acquire the relevant skills to succeed in these roles.

The goal of cross-skilling is to empower team members to develop skills covering a variety of roles and functions in addition to their own. This allows them to better understand different roles and perform them as needed. The idea is to provide support internally rather than outsourcing, hiring new talent, or potentially overworking certain employees.

Some benefits of cross-skilling include:

Having more employees with operational knowledge of different tasks increases flexibility and adaptability while better preparing your organization for unplanned events, such as absences or a higher volume of work. It also provides ample opportunities to see which of your team members might be ready for more cross-functional, higher-level roles within the company.

Providing an environment of ongoing training and professional development is an effective way to address skill gaps, meet changing industry demands, and ultimately build a more highly skilled team. Implementation within your existing program may be easier than you think.

Begin by evaluating your team's current skills and career goals to determine what may best suit their needs going forward. This includes identifying skill gaps, interest in training, and areas of opportunity for professional growth. As you establish how to incorporate the new program with your existing learning & development efforts, you may realize that you already have some elements of upskilling, reskilling, or cross-skilling in place.

As more and more skills are added to your team members' arsenals, another great way to show your commitment to their ongoing development is to invest in their professional licensure. Partnering directly with a reputable licensure exam prep company, such as School of PE, can be a cost-effective way for your team to achieve their organizational and professional development goals. We can tailor a program exclusively for your organization based on internal processes or areas of concentration.

With 20 years of experience in exam preparation and continuing education, our goal is to help your employees grow their careers through licensure and ongoing training. Our comprehensive, expert-instructed courses offer:

By working directly with School of PE, your employees will have access to our highly acclaimed courses and learning materials at a fraction of our per-student pricing available to individuals. In addition, you will have access to our user-friendly administrative portal, allowing you to monitor your team's progress and making it easier for you to facilitate the program's success.

Contact us today at info@schoolofpe.com or by phone at (614) 873-7475 to learn more about how School of PE can help your team increase their skills and advance their careers through licensure and professional development.