How to Upskill Yourself with These 5 Tips

Upskilling is a buzzword in career news lately. The practice involves improving on existing skills and learning new ones to become a more competitive candidate for advanced opportunities in the workplace. Businesses benefit from upskilling employees since they can retain the talent they already have and enhance their capabilities.

According to Statista, 75% of employees report that they’re satisfied or very satisfied at organizations offering opportunities for upskilling and reskilling. A Gallup poll found that 65% of job applicants feel that upskilling opportunities are critical when looking for a new role. 

Individuals seeking to move up in their fields or make themselves more substantial assets to their teams benefit significantly from upskilling. After all, technology is constantly changing, and what you learned in high school or college may not be current today. For example, the data science field is one of the fastest-growing industries — new technology is developed and adopted every day, making ongoing education vital for workers who wish to remain competitive.

Employees who want to become more efficient or who want their managers to choose them to lead critical projects should consider upskilling. You don’t necessarily need to obtain a new degree or certification to enhance your skills. Taking short-term courses or actively working to improve your qualifications is often enough. 

Rolai offers a free skills program for individuals seeking to learn some of the most sought-after skills today, including Python, data analytics, and AI. You can take the courses on your own schedule and undergo testing to measure your learning progress. For those serious about their education and want to propel their career exponentially can consider Rolai’s premium and certifications. 

Consider these 5 tips for upskill training and lifelong learning in today’s work environment.

1. Understand That Upskilling Isn’t Just Regular Training

You likely encounter regular on-the-job training opportunities. Whether you’re learning new responsibilities or filling in for someone going on vacation, there are numerous ways you undergo training in your current job.

Upskilling and reskilling are entirely different from on-the-job task training. When you upskill yourself, you’re improving capabilities you already have or learning completely different ones. 

The world has changed over the past few decades, and so have the skills required to handle specific jobs. Positions are often dependent on new technology, and not understanding how to use that technology can put you at a disadvantage in the workplace. Develop job-ready skills which can build essential data skills, industry use cases, and guided projects. Earn certificates through a learning track created by industry leaders and academics, and stay on the cutting edge of data skills with the regularly updated library.

Employers generally look for people who can deftly navigate technology but also have experience managing people and realizing the company’s strategic vision. 

While younger employees are typically more comfortable with technology, they often don’t yet have the knowledge or skills to manage entire teams. On the other hand, older workers may not be as comfortable with technology but have more experience leading the workforce.

Workers can close the skills gap by identifying deficiencies and taking action to overcome them. They should carefully select the skills most likely to benefit them and their organization and commit to improving both by learning new skills that will boost their career by enrolling in data analytics, data science, ML, and AI courses. These courses will utilize reading, videos, quizzes, data cases, and even coding exercises to teach you skills and concepts in a way that will solidify your new knowledge for hands-on application. (Data Analyst – Rolai, Data Scientist – Rolai, AI Scientist – Rolai)

2. Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Skills retraining starts with identifying your personal strengths and weaknesses. We all have things we’re good at and some that we’re not. Take an objective look at your capabilities and determine where you can improve. If you’re not sure, ask a manager or someone you trust at your workplace.

Speaking with a trusted manager can also highlight areas where the company struggles with a skills gap. Your manager can note where there’s room for improvement and suggest how you could develop the skills to take the lead.

For instance, if your organization’s current employees don’t excel at AI or data analysis, you could become the employee who does. Simply take the relevant courses and ask your boss if you could contribute to the company’s AI, data science, or data analytics projects along with the current team.Retraining is also an excellent way to feel confident in your current role. If you’re unfamiliar with some of the new technology in the workplace, a short course from Explore All – Rolai could introduce you to how it works and improve your performance.

Create a Plan for Building Your Skill Set

If you’re learning a required skill set for your position, it’s essential to create a plan you’ll follow. Start by breaking down the skills into specific components. Prioritize what you want to learn based on your goals and the needs of your role.

As you learn new skills, practice them on the job and in private. Find people who are experts in the skill you’re learning, and ask them to review your efforts. If you make mistakes, ask your reviewers to identify them and help you understand the error. 

Part of your learning must involve learning from your mistakes. Once you know what you did wrong, you’re less likely to make the error in the future.

Finally, keep yourself motivated. It can be easy to get distracted by other things going on in life, especially if you have a family or other responsibilities. Schedule your training so you remain committed to your career goals.

Rolai offers an upskilling program for people interested in improving their data analysis, data science, machine learning, and AI skills. With our courses, you remain motivated through regular training and contests that further your abilities and allow you to practice with real-world scenarios.

Our enterprise solution for businesses allows companies to offer their employees unlimited access to our course library and teachings. Rolai also provides custom training for businesses that need workers trained in certain skills. We have real-world courses that allow students to apply the fundamentals of their training to actual industry use cases and projects.

3. Understand Your Opportunities for Promotion

With upskilling, you gain a path to improvement that can help you grow as an employee and as an individual. You’ll stand out from other employees who haven’t taken the steps to improve their skills or stay relevant with new ones. 

When it comes time for a promotion, employees with more outstanding capabilities are more likely to gain a coveted manager-level position.

Even if there aren’t current opportunities available, you can continue to master your skills and improve yourself in your current role. Staying loyal to your company, even when you have easily transferable skills that could land you a new position in another environment, can cement you as indispensable to the organization.

Managers who know they’re leading highly skilled teams can improve retention rates by offering cross-training opportunities. Cross-training allows employees to learn new tasks (sometimes in entirely different departments), leading to higher worker motivation, increased teamwork, and more internal promotions. Further, if workers show signs of boredom in their current roles, cross-training allows employers to put them to work on new projects in other areas. 

4. Find a Way to Balance Your Schedule

Finding the time to learn a new skill is difficult when you have a busy schedule. Take a holistic look at your typical week and decide how to fit in your career development training program along with your job and other responsibilities.

Some people are natural early birds, while others work their best in the evenings. Determine which category you fit into and decide which timeframe is best for improving your skills. 

If mornings are more manageable, go to bed early and commit to an early start the next day. You can fit in an hour or so of training before preparing for the workday.

If evenings are best, schedule a study time and stick with it. Don’t allow interruptions, and let friends and family know when you’ll be unavailable. Eliminate distractions like your smartphone, and concentrate on your training. 

If you stray from your training schedule, don’t spend too much time dwelling on your failure. Instead, jump back into it the next day. The more you stay consistent with your program, the more likely you are to succeed.

5. Find Affordable Upskilling Opportunities

There are dozens of affordable upskilling opportunities that you can find on various learning platforms. However, few of them are entirely free. 

At Rolai, we are upending the industry by offering a free solution that anyone can sign up to use. If you want to learn more about certifications or more well-rounded solutions with opportunities to practice your growing skills, visit our website to advance your learning.

With Rolai, you can access courses applicable to a wide variety of industries in topics relevant to today’s technological environment, including data science, machine learning, and AI. 

Some of the courses available through Rolai include:

• Fundamentals of Data Visualization (Fundamentals of Data Visualization – Part I – Rolai)
• Python Programming for Data Science (Python Programming for Data Science – Rolai)
• Stock Price Analysis for Banking Institutions (Stock Price Analysis for Banking Institutions – Rolai)
• Customer Feedback Analysis Using Text Clustering (Customer Feedback Analysis Using Text Clustering – Rolai)
• Improving Product Quality with Feature Engineering (Improving Product Quality With Feature Engineering – Rolai)
• Analyzing Employee Performance with Exploratory Data Analysis (Analyzing Employee Performance with Exploratory Data Analysis – Rolai)
• Sentiment analysis in Python(Sentiment Analysis in Python – Rolai)
• Data science with Pandas (Data Science with Pandas – Rolai)

Each course employs different data tools students use to improve their technological skills. Individuals can learn in a real-world, case-based setting that allows them to incorporate specific skills throughout each course.

People who sign up for our Pro package can earn certificates and access premium lab features that give students more hands-on training and practice. They can also benefit from cloud features that let them share their projects and view other students’ performance as they will have access to learning tracks from where they can benchmark their proficiency, receive course recommendation and track your performance in real time and can take immediate action to increase your proficiency. Like Healthcare analytics(Healthcare Analytics – Rolai), Machine Learning Scientist (Machine Learning Scientist – Rolai), AI scientist (AI Scientist – Rolai), Business Analyst (Business Analyst – Rolai) etc.

Businesses interested in upskilling their workforce can purchase an Enterprise subscription that offers bespoke courses designed specifically for organizational needs. We have numerous clients whose employees have benefited from our courses, including Accenture, Citi, and Mercedes-Benz.

Upskilling Is a Process, Not a Race

It’s not uncommon for individuals to begin enhancing their skills, only to give up when it requires additional effort and time. However, the time you spend upskilling yourself will help you in the long run, returning your investment several times over.

Increasing your skill set makes you a stronger candidate for new jobs and opportunities. As you continue to learn, you’ll be able to command a larger salary and find more opportunities for promotion. One study from Gallup found that employees who recently completed an upskilling program earned approximately 8.6% more than their peers, or about $8,000. 

Upskilling has an excellent ROI for both individuals and businesses. According to a study conducted by the World Economic Forum, approximately 66% of employers expect to see a significant ROI from their upskilling training programs. Employers desire workers who possess the most in-demand skills, and you’ll be able to tap into yours to further the organization’s goals.

Over time, upskilling creates a robust workforce that can meet today’s business needs. Content workers will contribute more toward the growth of the company and can expect greater upward mobility and higher salary potential. 

When it comes to the potential benefits of upskilling yourself, it sounds like a win-win to us.