I just finished a recent article in Forbes (“Three Best Practices for Structuring Right-Skilling and Professional Development”), where the author lays out the case for right-skilling – equipping your workforce with the right skills to tackle the tasks they’re facing. With how quickly today’s workforce has been digitally transformed thanks to new technologies and improved workflows, in addition to further retirement of the baby-boomer generation and personnel disruptions in the wave of the COVID pandemic, right-skilling is a necessity to take advantage of new opportunities and leads to increased productivity and job satisfaction and most importantly, an improved bottom line.
In his piece, Mr. Glass highlights three best practices for right-skilling. These include Identify and Close Learning Gaps, Create Continuous Learning Opportunities, and Build a More Effective Training Ecosystem.
I couldn’t agree more with what Glass included in his article. It made me think back to traditional training sessions I participated back in the day. During those courses, members of my team would dedicate a day or two (always in the summer for some reason) to learning a new system or a new method we would employ for sales. Honestly, some of those courses were very useful but most of the lessons would be long forgotten by the time a new training session came along the following summer.
Compare that to today, where your competitors are always looking for a new advantage and new ways to get in the door of your customer or that prospect you yourself are trying to land. No, professional development now goes on year-round. Anything to get that leg up.
Along these lines, today I learned that my colleague has an agreement with several FPSA members to provide monthly progress reports on the training courses their employees are taking with FPSA’s 180 Skills Program. While I can’t disclose who these companies are, I love it that they have incorporated the 180 Skills library into their professional development efforts. I love it even more that FPSA gets to help them track the success of these efforts. It’s nice to see when a customer recognizes the value of one of your products!
180 Skills is an online training platform for FPSA members designed specifically for manufacturing companies. With over 700 courses in technical and soft skills, members get to decide what best suits their training needs, and assign courses on the employee’s timetable, all from the luxury of their own home or office.
Interested in best practices? We’ve got ‘em. Just reach out. We’ll help you right-skill your team.
Andy Drennan, FPSA SVP
