When your professional learning strategy is focused on skills development, you can help your employees progress in their careers and ensure your organization’s future needs are met. In this blog post, learn the eight non-negotiable steps you need to take to implement a successful talent strategy.

Developing workforce skills takes a lot more than just “upskilling and reskilling” your workforce. It takes time, research, and careful planning to understand your company’s current and future needs. But once you know those needs, you can determine which skills are the most crucial to driving your organizational success.

It’s also important to be mindful of workforce trends and technological advancements that may impact your business. Your willingness to understand and respond to what motivates your employees to learn can make or break your talent development program’s success.

The following actionable steps will help you design and launch a successful skills-based strategy.

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1) Identify Desired Skills

It’s hard to implement a skills-based development strategy if you don’t know which skills you need to develop! Consider your organization’s long-term goals, and ask yourself which skills and competencies will be required to achieve them. There’s no standard method for identifying your most desired skills because each organization’s needs are unique. That said, being as specific as possible when you define your goals can go a long way toward helping you narrow down your list. A broad statement like “improve performance” doesn’t give you a clear path for identifying the workforce skills needed to reach your key objectives. Once you’re clear about your long-term goals, it’ll be easier to determine which hard and soft skills are the most critical to your organization’s success.

2) Perform a Skills Gap Analysis

Once you know which skills you’ll need, the next step is discovering which ones you already have. Conducting a skills gap analysis gives you a baseline understanding of the competencies that already exist within your organization. You can establish a skills inventory or framework with your talent development software to track your employees’ current skills and easily see where skills are deployed throughout your organization.

Measure and document your talent’s current skill levels by interviewing and surveying your employees. Review performance appraisal data from your talent management software for a more holistic view of where your employees stand compared to where you need them to be to achieve your business objectives.

3) Provide Opportunities for Skills Development

Help your employees upskill and reskill with a variety of professional development opportunities and resources. You can leverage on-demand asynchronous learning content, training workshops, and mentoring programs to ensure your employees receive the essential knowledge they need to build their skills. Be sure to offer multiple learning pathways when you can so your employees can experience their skills training in a way that’s best suited to their needs.

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4) Track and Measure Skills Development

A skills-based development strategy needs to include metrics tracking. You need to have data to compare to the information you gathered during your skills gap analysis so you can assess the effectiveness of your programs and training materials. An LMS with robust analytics can help you easily track:

• Course completions
• Assessments
• Skills certifications and badges
• Progress toward learning goals

As you continue to gather training data, you can identify which courses and materials are the most (and least) effective at helping your workforce acquire or enhance crucial skills. These metrics will help you make agile adjustments to your training program to ensure your employees and organization are prepared to tackle workplace challenges and achieve organizational goals.

5) Recognize Employee Achievements

Your employees will be more motivated to learn and update their skills when they feel valued and appreciated. Create a system to recognize and reward them as they grow their skills and reach milestones. In addition to skills badges and certifications, you can incorporate employees’ professional development achievements into your incentive rewards program. While your incentives certainly can be monetary, they don’t have to be. Flexible work arrangements, expanded personal leave options, and wellness incentives are just a few of the nontraditional rewards that entice today’s employees. However you choose to reward your employees, the important thing is that your workforce knows you value their time and efforts to improve their skills.

LEARN MORE ABOUT NONTRADITIONAL REWARDS IN THIS EBOOK| ‘How to Evolve Your Incentive Strategies With the Changing Workforce’

6) Promote Internal Mobility

One of the great benefits of a skills-based work model is enhanced internal mobility. When you look at your employees’ skills rather than job titles, you can deploy your workforce with greater agility and meet your organizational needs. Employees benefit from this flexibility because their career pathways aren’t limited to “climbing the ladder” within your organization.

Not everyone wants to be a manager, but plenty of people want to grow beyond their current roles in different ways. Unfortunately, only 33% of organizations have internal mobility programs. Promoting opportunities within your organization can help you stand out as an employer and retain talented people ready to expand their careers. Rather than lose top talent to competitors, you can help your employees take on new responsibilities while meeting your organization’s skills needs. An internal mobility program could also help bolster your organization’s reputation as a great place to work.

7) Foster a Continuous Learning Culture

A skills-based learning strategy isn’t solely about meeting your organization’s immediate needs. The job roles and functions required to stay competitive will inevitably evolve as technologies advance. Learning is the best way to prepare your employees (and your organization) for positions that don’t currently exist. You must continue to emphasize the importance of skills development and foster a culture of continuous learning so your workforce will be ready to move into these new and exciting roles as they’re created.

Embrace mentorship, coaching, and knowledge sharing programs to encourage your employees to proactively seek growth opportunities. Your more experienced talent will have a lot of valuable knowledge they can pass on to newer employees. Foster these relationships to further solidify a continuous learning culture. Another way to encourage continuous learning is to recognize your workers’ accomplishments in meaningful ways. Learning incentives like digital skills badges are a great way to show your employees that their time spent training is meaningful and appreciated.

8) Make Data-Driven Decisions

Your data should be the heart of your talent development strategy. Without it, you won’t be able to make informed decisions that drive results. Use data and analytics embedded in your LMS or skills development platform to assess the effectiveness of your training programs. The data will also help you understand your current workforce capabilities and discover skills gaps so you can make strategic talent development decisions that put your company in the best position to achieve success.

Leverage your LMS or skills development platform to make data-backed decisions about resource allocation, training initiatives, and recruitment efforts that ensure you make the best use of your time, money, and talent. For your strategy to remain impactful, adjust your training programs as needed to ensure your employees are building the necessary skill sets to be successful professionals who move your business forward.