Page 66 - IMDR - Journal of Management Development and Research - March2019-20

Importance of Upskilling

According to the Financial Express dated March 19, 2019, India possesses

extremely low that is 4.69% formally skilled workforce in SMEs as compared to the
other prominent countries such as China (24%), US (52%), UK (68%), Germany

(75%), Japan (80%), and South Korea (96%). The only solution available and tested
is upskilling. Let’s have a brief look at the advantages offered by upskilling.

Upskilling enhance competencies and thereby ensures job security

Upskilling boosts employability and morale
Employees get a chance to grow into managerial roles as well as promotion

It brings new opportunities with added benefits
It opens up new possibilities with changing job perspectives

Upskilling enables organizations to adapt to change and achieve agility and
transformation

Upskilling employees help organizations to maximize productivity with

existing
resources

Organizations can easily handle the sudden exit by any of its employees by

providing a qualified successor without jeopardizing their operations
Upskilling current employees can directly save huge resources required to

onboard new employees

Upskilling Methodologies

According to above reports, if 40% of India’s workforce who is invested in SME’s

are willing to get upskilled but might not afford to then the question is what are the
sources through which this gap can be filled?

Other whooping numbers are shared here from data published in LinkedIn. This

clearly indicates that many training and consulting organizations are still offering
cost intensive programs to SMEs. The conventional upskilling strategies are

mentioned below-
1. Class room training- The traditional and face to face, resource intensive

training methodology.
2. Virtual training- Employee’s upskilling through virtual classes where face

time and hence cost is optimised.

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