Overlooked Talent: How to Select Employees for Your Reskilling Program
As the Great Resignation continues and new technologies disrupt the market, jobs are becoming increasingly obsolete, resulting in a growing talent shortage. There are 11 million open positions in America with only 6.5 million people to fill them. This represents massive losses for these companies the longer open positions remain unfilled. 
To counter talent shortages, organizations are discovering the benefits of growing their workforces by supplementing their talent acquisition needs through reskilling and upskilling rather than external hiring alone.
However, establishing clear employee development opportunities and the follow-through of these opportunities are lacking. An encouraging 73 percent of employers say fostering employee development is important, but nearly half of employees said that leadership is implementing these practices. To assist companies, reskilling providers are taking a more active role in the selection and implementation process of employee development solutions.
Reskilling providers not only execute these solutions, but can also support identifying the employees best-fit for the program. Sometimes, however, organizations prefer to conduct their own candidate selection process or don’t have the financial resources to use a partner for recruitment efforts. To support your reskilling journey, we’ve rounded up three steps for identifying internal talent for reskilling opportunities.
1. Gauge employee interest in reskilling.
According to a survey conducted by PwC, as much as 77 percent of workers say they’re ready to learn new skills or completely retrain, but this number varies greatly from organization to organization.
Before investing heavily in a program, determine the number of employees that would be interested in a reskilling opportunity. Such outreach can be conducted via emails, surveys or introduced in team meetings. If your team does not have the capacity to do so, consider reaching out to a reskilling provider to strategize gauging interest.
2. Market your reskilling program internally.
Once you’ve established the need and gauged interest in a reskilling program, it is time to focus on getting your selected employees and moving forward in the process.
In this stage, your company will market the program and inspire employees to apply for the opportunity. Your organization can even identify an internal individual to champion the program and answer questions from interested employees. Another way is to utilize company messaging boards and email lists to relay the information.
A helpful tip is to market the program details and outcomes, which will give participants a clear idea of what to expect during and at the conclusion of the program. Set clear goals and expectations and highlight what employees get at the end of the program (whether it be a new title, raise or responsibilities).
If you’re working with a reskilling provider, look for ways they can support your internal marketing efforts. At Tech Elevator, we offer scalable ways to work with your team, allowing you to be as involved as you’d like.
3. Vet employees interested in reskilling.
Now that you’ve identified select employees who are interested in the program, the next step is to determine whether or not they’re a good fit. Vet employees based on program criteria to help ensure returns on your workforce investment.
Vetting employees interested in a reskilling opportunity can look different depending on your organization’s resources and preferred approach. At Tech Elevator, we’ve found that the combination of traditional testing and behavioral interviews can be great indicators of someone’s success in our program.
In partnership with Watterson & Associates and The Center for Excellence and Innovation in Education at Cleveland State University, we designed our very own aptitude test to be free of any bias. The aptitude test, along with behavioral interviews, are designed to determine whether an individual would be a good fit for the program–measuring both aptitude and attitude.
Choose your reskilling provider and start your journey today.
A qualified reskilling partner can guide you in the selection process for identifying employees with the attitude and aptitude for a coding career. They can even assist in gauging company interest, internal marketing and vetting employees best-suited for the program. A flexible reskilling partner will make implementing your workforce development solution that much more manageable, so make sure to discuss your options and the services provided before you get started.
For support implementing reskilling and more insight on employee selection, schedule a time to chat with our workforce development solutions team.
