You might be upskilling all wrong—Here’s how to actually get workers to retrain for the future

The AI revolution has begun, and businesses are rapidly integrating the technology into their daily operations. Some companies have openly admitted that those changes have led to hiring freezes, and many employees have been left wondering how they can gain the skills of the future to avoid getting left behind. 

That anxiety has helped give rise to a new corporate obsession: upskilling, the idea that companies should teach their staff new skills outside their current capabilities. A majority of workers want learning opportunities from their employers, and bosses want reskilling, too—it creates a modernized workforce. 

But companies are struggling to figure out how to retrain their workers. Only around 50% of companies attempting to implement large-scale upskilling programs in 2024 had activated those initiatives, according to a new report from LinkedIn. Around 41% were still in the planning stage, and just 4% were at a point where they could measure any progress. 

One-size-fits-all programs designed to train thousands of employees at once are ambitious, but slow-moving and non-specific to individual needs, Stephanie Conway, director of talent development at LinkedIn, tells Fortune. Instead of solely funneling efforts into rolling out these big endeavors, she says that companies should also focus on the specific potential career paths of individual workers. 

Conway says that when it comes to upskilling, employers should take a two-pronged strategy. Companies should give employees specific ways that they can obtain technical skills, which could include internal training sessions or outsourcing through external learning platforms. They also need to develop a skills-based infrastructure within the organization at large—valuing and redefining talent based on skills instead of just resumes or education level. That clarity about which skills apply to which jobs offers a path for a worker to travel from one role to another.

“You know what is expected and what you need to learn, because the skills have been mapped,” Conway says. 

With a solid idea of what training is needed, it’s then up to workers to create a game plan with their bosses on how they want to educate themselves, and which skills they should focus on. That, says Conway, comes down to “a conversation with your manager.”

Emma Burleigh
emma.burleigh@fortune.com
@EmmaBurleigh1

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