What are your Unique Abilities? Why is upskilling essential for one’s progress..?
Upskilling entails learning new skills, but it also involves a cultural shift and change management. To be competitive in the digital age, individuals and corporations require a learning-for-life mindset, collaboration with humans and machines, and a willingness to embrace new ways of doing things. It also requires a global perspective, agile adaptation, cultural diversity and awareness, a global perspective, data analytics, people skills (EQ), and time management skills and the list goes on.
Here are the important tips to keep in mind when introducing upskilling to your progress
- TIP 1 Set goal for yourself:
Setting specific goals to improve your career helps you stay on track with your development. Make sure your goals are measurable, achievable and relevant to your profession or your goals. Then, consider organizing a timeline to achieve your goal by setting a beginning and end date, as well as smaller goals to achieve along the way. Workplace interruptions or distractions come in all shapes and sizes when reaching the goals. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been interrupted or who interrupts you the most during the day. What matters is how you avoid workplace interruptions and improve your work performance and reach your goals. Remember, workplace interruptions are dangerous. They make you lose focus, waste time, and in the end, disrupt your work management and cause a delay in reaching the target.
Pro Tip: Learn to say “no” when necessary.
- TIP 2 Find a mentor:
A professional mentor is typically a superior whom you respect and trust. Once you find your mentor, you can reach out for informal meetings, which can then naturally develop into a professional relationship.He can give value-add in different ways like advising on career growth, advising on dealing with challenges at work, advising on career transitions, and advising on staying relevant at the workplace.
Infact, a study says that about 70% of Fortune 500 companies have a Mentorship program in place. Connecting experienced employees with newer team members fosters a sense of community, while also rounding out existing training initiatives.
Pro tip: Have a very relaxed lunchtime mentoring talk, perhaps once a month where your mentor gives the suggestions or update on their specialist area. Lay on a nice buffet to draw in attendees so they can lunch and learn.
- TIP 3: Acknowledge your Strengths and Weaknesses:
To up skill yourself, the word “perfect” is too good to be true. There’s no way for you to be perfect in everything. We all have weak spots and it’s important to acknowledge them in order to seek improvement. Additionally, every individual has his own strengths i.e. something that they are exceptionally good at. Now, in order to up skill your everyday work performance, you need to cherish your strengths and overcome your weaknesses at the same time.
Never settle for “quite okay” when you can achieve “awesome”. Be your own critic and keep evaluating your performance for potential improvements. If you’re pretty good at something, then do whatever you can to be the best at it.
Pro Tip: Decide what you enjoy the most at work
Also Read: 9 Amazing Personality Development Tips for Everyone
- TIP 4 Communicate Better:
Communication is a two-way street. Effective communication is a practice that makes you certain about things at work, learn new and improved ways to achieve better results, and finally, improve overall work performance. Remember, every opinion matters and it can certainly help you take your work performance to a new level. Consider injecting a powerful team communication app or tool into your workflow. Evaluate the various choices available in the market, including team messaging apps, discussion boards, group chat apps, video conferencing tools and so on. As well as attending seminars, webinars and workshops are also crucial to expand your networking opportunities.
Pro Tip: Having the conversation with experienced people in the company might even take you closer to wonderful job opportunities and upskilling yourself.
- TIP 5 Conquer difficult tasks first:
In order to up skill yourself, one needs to catch hold of the difficult tasks first. This point is directly related to “plan and prioritize the work”. Obviously, you can’t do every task or activity at the same time. That’s why it is important that you figure out what tasks should be completed first and what tasks can be postponed or delegated during the planning stage. Along with understanding the difference between “urgent” and “important” tasks, always focus on tasks that need immediate attention.
Pro Tip: Keep the “most important tasks” at the top and start checking off other tasks in your list from top-down. The idea behind this is, if a task seems somewhat annoying to you, just ease off your mind by getting rid of it as soon as possible.
- TIP 6 Participate in Job Shadowing:
Job shadowing is a great way to learn more about the day-to-day responsibilities of another profession and to learn new skills. Generally, it is best to choose individuals who are experienced or perform well in their positions. Job shadowing usually involves following a professional while they perform their job duties and learning about different skills. It also allows you to get a realistic picture of the tasks performed for that job. And this helps you to up skill yourself also to make an informed decision about your career of your choice.
Pro Tip: Step out of your comfort zone and sign up for growth.
- TIP 7 Take continuous educational courses and training in career-related fields:
To up skill there are courses that are often taught by professionals with experience in a particular field. For some professions, continuing educational courses are required to stay updated in the current industry. Many colleges and universities offer continuing educational courses in a variety of fields for up-skilling the progress. Also many companies use independent training departments with experts in different fields that train on specialized skill sets. Check in with your supervisor about what your firm has to offer and which courses would be especially beneficial for your professional growth as well as upskilling yourself.
Pro Tip: MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses can help your workforce up skill faster for a fraction of the cost.
Each person in the company has a unique set of experiences, skills, talents, and motivations. Up-skilling boosts the morale of every individual as well as it creates an engaged and motivated workforce enjoying greater job satisfaction, higher motivation as the result it increases productivity and efficiency of the employee.
