Upskilling, Reskilling, and Cross-Skilling: Training Strategies for Change Management

How will this generation of employers and employees use learning and training strategies for change management and to be ready for the future? Recently, AllenComm CEO Ron Zamir was asked to provide his expertise and insights on this subject for an article published in The Electrical Distributor Magazine (tED)* –  a B2B publication with an audience of engineers, contractors, electrical distributors, and others in the industry – in their Special Report: Training for Tomorrow (April 2022).

In the current market, employers across industries are looking for strategies to help them compete for the best talent, retain employees, and prepare their teams to meet the challenges of economic pressures. The tED Special Report is focused on the competition for employees enticed to other sectors by higher wages, opportunities for education, and career development. Their audience is asking: What will it take to get the best talent? How can we prevent them from leaving? How can we develop them for careers in our industry? What are the right training strategies for change management? The report shows how the right training strategies can help answer these questions.

Zamir was asked to weigh in on the value of training to cross-skill the workforce as a vital strategy for change management, talent development and retention. In an article entitled, “Close the Skills Gap,” Zamir discussed the ongoing need to prepare employees to bridge skills gaps created by the introduction of new technologies, as well as the need to maintain the flexibility to pivot into new roles based on change and need.

“’Employers in general are facing a situation similar to that of the auto industry of 20 years ago,” said Ron Zamir, CEO of AllenComm, a corporate training advisory. ‘The need to reskill people to handle new machinery, processes and software.’ He suggests that cross-skilling programs aim for a level of skill overlap that achieves maximum staff flexibility while controlling the level of financial investment.” (The Electrical Distributor Magazine, April 2022, p 10.)

He went on to recommend use of a needs analysis and micro-credentialing to customize training to maximize the value of training for the role and employee, to effectively motivate and build skills, rather than to over train or overwhelm employees. 

Zamir has also shared his thought leadership on the need for cross-skilling and training strategies for change management through training in recent articles published in Forbes.

The AllenComm team has worked on a number of projects in many industries that are designed to help employers meet the demands, including to provide scaled onboarding training for a large number of new employees, compliance training that reduces seat times, and custom eLearning development to increase productivity. You can read case studies here, including case studies that highlight our work with reskilling, cross-skilling, upskilling.

*The American Society of Business Publication Editors called it one of the best B2B publications in the country in 2021.