Upskilling and reskilling are some of the most used words when talking about vocational training. What do these two terms mean? What differences? What is their place in the world of training?
The constant evolution of the world of work is leading to profound changes in employment conditions. Employees must demonstrate a great ability to adapt throughout their career, especially in certain sectors such as IT where retraining is frequent, but also more generally in all jobs impacted by digital technology.
This need to adapt also means that employees must train continuously and can now develop new skills within a company. This offers them the opportunity to change activities regularly during their professional career or to evolve within various departments in the same company.
To do this, a distinction is made between two types of training: the Reskilling and The upskilling. What are the differences between these two anglicisms?
The reskilling
Reskilling is a training method linked to recruitment. It allows the acquisition of new skills, adapted to a new position. It is a matter of professional retraining and most often leads to a change. Employees already in service can also benefit from it in order to restructure.
An employee who can no longer find a job in his initial field of training can thus consider turning to promising sectors, particularly in the context of digital transformation. Very often, layoffs are due to a lack of know-how rather than a lack of skills, which is why soft skills are predominant in recruitment.
Upskilling
Upskilling is different from reskilling because it is not a radical reorientation but the acquisition of new skills related to the job already carried out. It is therefore an increase in prior skills or know-how of employees in order to remain competitive in a position.
The aim of this skills update is to follow the changes in a profession and to boost professional careers. The employees thus develop their skills and are more versatile, and they adapt to new practices related to their line of business.
Upskilling can be offered by an HR department or a manager as part of a promotion and new responsibilities, for which it is essential to prepare by training.
The differences between upskilling and reskilling
The main thing in common between upskilking and reskilling is that these two types of training make it possible to gain in productivity, both for the employee and for the company. They thus have many advantages but still have some differences.
Upskilling is more of a training course to update an employee's current knowledge, mainly intended for employees already working in a company. The objective of upskilling is to perpetuate a position or to develop an employee within an organization.
For its part, the Reskilling includes training and recruitment, often to upgrade a new employee with soft skills that meet the expectations of the company but who needs a technical upgrade. Reskilling is more oriented towards professional retraining or taking up a new position.
