Elevating Workforce Employability: Strategies for Companies

For your workforce to succeed, they need the appropriate skills to excel in each role. The qualifications, skills, and knowledge you recruit for shift as the company grows. Roles also change as new technology enters the workplace. Employability is a measure of how well each person can gain employment, do their job, and progress to new roles, and it requires a commitment to continual development in areas such as critical thinking, communication skills, and technology. 

With changes in how people work following COVID-19 and developments in artificial intelligence and automation, ensuring your workforce has the necessary skills to adapt and develop is as important as ever. Companies that embrace employability initiatives are seeing many benefits, including higher levels of job satisfaction and increased retention rates. A well-cited study published in Frontiers in Psychology shows that investing in human resource (HR) practices to enhance employability benefits both employers and employees, with the added benefit of increased workplace commitment [1].

Use this guide to explore the role of employability within your company and learn how to build a strategy for using employability to benefit company growth and employee retention.

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Defining employability in the corporate realm

Employability in a corporate environment refers to the ability of your employees to do their job by having the appropriate skills, characteristics, and work-based competencies that relate to their specific roles. It is about having the proper workplace and technical skills and applying these abilities in a corporate setting to allow your employees to be adaptive, innovative, and solve problems. 

Read more: 9 Ways to Boost Employee Skills at Your Company

Key components of employability

Employability skills can generally fit into four broad categories:

• Technical skills: industry-relevant competencies such as utilizing software applications or understanding the programming languages that create them

• Workplace skills: transferable skills such as communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking

• Effective relationships: Personal characteristics, such as interpersonal skills and a positive attitude, allow building and maintaining effective relationships, resulting in excellent teamwork and the completion of goals.

• Adaptive skills: the ability to use skills to adapt to new environments, to different ways of working, and to integrate into an organization.

However, you mustn’t see employability as simply upskilling. While new skills are an integral part of supporting employability, how these skills are applied and used for the employee to progress is an essential factor.

Why employability matters for companies

Employability is essential to companies that want to retain staff with the necessary skills to remain competent, adapt to change, and progress. Employability often focuses on new graduates who need to build their skills to enter the workplace; however, it is much more than that and doesn’t stop once a person gains employment because the goal is to remain employed throughout their life.

You’ve probably noticed that the workforce dynamic has changed in recent years with the onset of new technology, remote and hybrid work following the global pandemic, and the instability of a long-term career that has driven more and more people to self-employment or to seek companies with more flexibility. Companies are realizing the importance of retaining a workforce that can adapt to changes and challenges. As a result, they are embracing employability and upskilling their employees. 

The role of companies in fostering employability

Employers increasingly understand the importance of employability, upskilling, and engaging their existing workforce. Changes must start from the top by ensuring management-level staff are on board to implement and champion changes, which can take the form of developing a learning culture, tailoring skill development to the individual, and aligning training with career advancement. After all, many of your employees want to move forward in their careers. According to a 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center, 63 percent of employees stated that a lack of opportunities for career advancement was at least part of their reason for leaving their current job [2].

To foster employability within a company culture, you’ll find many factors to consider, such as:

Nurturing a learning culture within the organization

Make lifelong learning a standard within your company so current and future employees know that employee development is part of the role. That’s a good start to fostering excellent employability practices. 

According to Deloitte, several companies see the benefits of a skills-based organizational approach focused on a collection of skills rather than a job title. This model emphasizes outcomes and projects rather than a role defined by an inflexible title [3]. 

Regarding recruiting, retention, and job placement, some employers are shifting away from placing a heavy emphasis on degrees and qualifications. Instead, they focus more on relevant skills, especially in technical fields. While a degree provides knowledge, it is not necessarily a measure of how well a person can put their knowledge into action, and employers are searching for people with the skill set to do the actual work. 

Providing opportunities for tailored skill development

Effective upskilling in your organization must occur in a context relevant to the person’s development and specific position rather than at incremental points in the year. 

Micro-training is particularly effective, offering short sessions—typically 15 to 30 minutes—customized to the learner while utilizing technology to allow for flexibility and diversity of learning styles. Rotation programs are also an option to enable employees to learn different areas of a business and benefit from the skills and knowledge of more experienced people. 

Aligning training with career advancement

Providing your employees with a career development plan that outlines their individual development needs and how they align with the company’s culture and growth objectives gives you an immediate source of talent for upper-level positions. Additionally, this approach can increase employee engagement and retention because they realize you are operating in their best interest.

Corporate benefits of implementing an employability strategy

Upskilling and training your staff to be adaptable, acclimating them to new technology, and encouraging advancement brings many benefits for both the employer and the employee, such as retention, preparation for new technology, and development of new leaders. These include: 

Retention: Employees tend to be loyal and look for internal promotions if they know that an organization offers employability programs prioritizing continued career development. Suppose you show your employees that you want to develop and advance their abilities within the company. In that case, they are more likely to stick with you rather than search for other opportunities, which saves on costly recruitment drives and high staff turnover. 

Preparation for technological advances: Technology is rapidly evolving, and employability programs that continually train employees in new technology foster a culture of innovation while helping workers adapt to the latest trends.

Engagement and empowerment: Meaningful employment alone is not enough over time, but focusing on employability strategies is an effective way to keep employee engagement high and make them feel valued as part of a team. It can help create staff who feel empowered and motivated to develop within the company and contribute ideas and innovation. 

Attracts top talent: If your company becomes renowned for its excellent employee development, you will likely attract candidates with a development and growth mindset, ultimately benefiting your organization. 

Fosters new leaders: Attracting and retaining top talent through an effective employability strategy allows your company to develop home-grown leaders. Companies can determine members of staff who have potential and offer tailored training to develop the areas they want to focus on. 

Improves employee wellbeing: A happy workforce is a productive workforce. If people feel valued and supported, they are more apt to act loyal and be hard-working. According to Gallup, a fulfilled worker is 32 percent less likely to look for another job [4]. Therefore, it’s vital that an employability strategy also looks at the well-being of their employees by being mindful of work-life balance, taking into account resilience in the face of change, and being aware of potential mental health issues while focusing on upskilling.

Read more: What We've Learned About Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace

Factors to consider when developing an employability strategy

While employability and employee development are essential and beneficial to all parties, you must consider certain factors when supporting your staff through an employability program. Some factors to consider include:

Make career progression obvious: An employability strategy will only increase retention if staff can see a clear pathway for career progression. Make it clear to your employees that internal recruitment is a priority and focus on fostering talent and tailoring training to develop new leaders. Doing this can also inspire employee loyalty. 

Tailor training and skills development: Rather than a series of training that all new employees follow, employability initiatives are effective when you tailor training to where development is needed. Skills rotation programs are an excellent way of upskilling the workforce because your employees can increase their transferable skills, learn more about the organization, and prepare themselves for future leadership roles.

Read more: The Power of an Effective Employee Training Plan

Consult employees: Employee feedback on ways to improve your employability strategy is valuable in developing it in a way that empowers employees to engage. When collecting employee feedback, involving the human resources department as an intermediary is a good idea.

Measure the program's impact: As you enact training, you can use key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure skill improvement, staff retention, and the value of employability investments. You can also apply return-on-investment (ROI) measurements to determine if your employee development program is successful in terms of productivity, retention, customer satisfaction, and profitability.

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Employability initiatives are becoming essential to the corporate world as organizations recognize the benefits of improving their staff's skills, adaptability, and technical abilities. Benefits to both employers and employees include increased retention, improved engagement and well-being, and workforce preparation for change.

Attract frontline talent, support internal mobility, and prepare workers for in-demand, digital jobs with Career Academy from Coursera. Featuring a curated catalog of guided tutorials and projects focused on high-value digital skills and tools, Career Academy offers competitive career development opportunities with training programs from industry leaders like Google, Salesforce, Intuit, Meta, and Ashok Leyland, among many others. Explore Coursera for Business to learn how to provide the technology training your business needs to be competitive.

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