Ignite your potential: Here are reasons to upskill, reskill, and cross-skill
Chances are, you’ve heard of the terms upskilling, reskilling, and cross-skilling before. But do you know what they mean and why they’re so important today?
Upskilling. As its name suggests, upskilling is when you enhance your current skill set and knowledge so that you can stay ahead of the competition and grow in your chosen career path. Think of it like “leveling up” yourself in your current tasks, learning new things to improve output through faster delivery time and doing more within a set period.
Reskilling. It sounds like you’ve missed out on important capabilities, but reskilling is really about enabling you to adapt faster to changes in your role, brought about by the introduction of new technologies that require capable operators. For instance, a new software is introduced in your operations that requires you to learn how to run it requires you to reskill.
Cross-skilling. When your company needs you to be moved to a different team that has a different set of skills requirements, then you are required to be trained on those skills. This is called cross-skilling, which is the process of developing totally new and different skills that apply to multiple jobs within the company. Cross-skilling is perhaps the most challenging as it means starting at the very beginning to acquire those new skills. However, the upside to this is that you are able to adapt faster and easier to changes within the company, which increases your importance to the company.
The most important reason why you need to strengthen or learn new skills, especially these days, is that you gain a competitive career advantage not just at your work but in the industry you are in. By learning new but related skills, you become more efficient in how you work and gain new insights on how to improve. You may even discover new talents and passions that you wouldn’t otherwise have discovered.
Whether given to you by your company or if you took the initiative to learn yourself, gaining more skills is an investment in yourself that would make you even more essential to your employer. You will get more opportunities to be promoted in your current role, take on new and bigger roles. You may even get noticed by other companies that need your unique skills. You might even consider changing careers where your new skills take center stage. In any case, you will get better pay, better benefits, and better job security.
