Is upskilling the latest new normal in the world of work?
You don’t even need to check facts when I say that during lockdown upskilling especially via online tools has seen a great upsurge. It is more than ever before, precisely, 50% to say the least. This urge came in professionals as a way to feel more secure psychologically with their job, to have more chances of getting selected in a job interview after the sudden firing that happened due to almost zero profits to the companies. One other reason was that people were saving a lot of time and the whole narrative of upskilling was doing rounds.
While the above was from an individual’s angle, let’s now try and scrutinise it from the lens of businesses why are/were they wanting their employees to learn more and more. The challenges that the company were presented during lockdown was a complete shock for them. There were some employees whose job was not really possible in the start to be done remotely so they wanted everyone to reskill or upskill so that they can deliver more, add value and continue to work in some way or the other for the organisation!
So, what does this mean? Is this the opening of the new learning paradigm? How has technology supported it? What has the role of an HR and payroll software in India been/ changing into?
Let’s dive into the answers to all these questions below!
Skills Over Degrees and Experience
As upskilling is now being treated as an important aspect of growth, the obsolete norm of your degree, experience and marks matter more than how much you know might see a drop and gradually vanish. Now, every company prefers employees who can don more than one hats and most importantly are good with tech because that is what is taking over everything in our lives from making a cup of coffee to learning new skills.
The rise of Online Learning
Upskilling is the easiest when done online. Lazy, exhausted or way too occupied- we are one of any of these. However, knowing that the competition is high and increasing at a faster rate, the professionals are likely to upskill just like the lockdown time via online education option like online courses, webinars, workshops and more. The online education sector is and will definitely continue to see a rise in its demand and hence keep refining itself. Be it about students or professionals, both have transcended after the government announced lockdown, new education policy and remote work implementation.
How much has HR tech upskilled?
Now, when we talk about how HR and payroll software in India has contributed to the world of work, the contribution has been significant. To be precise it is not just the people alone, but software too have upskilled themselves. For instance, during the whole of this 2020, the requirements and expectations from an HR and payroll software in India saw a major shift. When earlier only biometrics were used and synced with attendance management module, now, the use of them has been eliminated completely due to the current threat of virus spread through contact. So, the first thing that the software providers in the market place started doing was making geolocation attendance feature available on their web-based version. Later, they upskilled by providing a mobile app, to make it easier for everyone in the company to view, edit and take actions.
The HR software providers have finally understood that it is necessary to close the loop of signals given by employees using helpdesk to actions by assigning them to the right teams for immediate actions upon them.
Besides this, the engagement has become micromanaged as opposed to the earlier norm when the performance of every employee was micromanaged. New features to facilitate and boost engagement on a daily basis have been updated too.
We are seeing a different work of work certainly, the one that is transforming quite rapidly, while the future cannot be aptly predicted yet, there are high chances that the inclusion of upskilling in new normal would make the future of work more hopeful and flexibility, empathy and trust that we all have built will continue to thrive!