Reskilling & Upskilling: How to Future-Proof Yourself for Tomorrow's Aviation Workplace

The Industry Is Changing Fast - How Will You Adapt?

The aviation industry is radically being transformed by innovation such as automation and Artificial Intelligence among many others.

The rise of technology has prompted a huge change in the work environment as well. Not only is digitalization transforming the sector, it also prompts organisations to relook at their existing resource.

Employers in the industry need to make sure that they are staffed with innovative and agile employees who are ready to tackle the many challenges the industry is facing.

Both you as an individual as well as a business operating in the aviation sector need to understand how reskilling and upskilling can help you to stay ahead of the game.

Let's examine each:

1. Reskilling - Gain an Entirely New Set of Skills

Reskilling is about learning new skills for a new position. Reskilling involves training on an entirely new set of skills to prepare you to take on a different role within the company. Many organizations, however, aren't proactive enough in their reskilling efforts so you must take responsibility and ownership of your own professional growth.

Reskilling and continuously building your skills throughout your career plays an important role in bringing about lateral (and vertical) career transitions no matter what stage in life you are at.

So what should you be doing? Think about your current skill set and the role you want 24 months from now, and then:

• Identify the key soft skills you have and need. This will help you to see where you have gaps and put learning goals in place to fill them. Important soft skills include critical thinking, problem-solving and learning agility. Learning agility is your most important skill because it means you have the curiosity and motivation to continuously learn new skills throughout your career.
• Consider the core technical skills you have that are likely to stay in high demand, such as digital literacy, data science, and data analytics. And then build upon those skills.
• Focus on skills that are portable and that will be critical regardless of what field you enter. For example, the data analytics skills you developed in your marketing role may be just as valuable in e-commerce or product development setting.
• Utilize learning technology & spot opportunities to practice.  Whatever technology you use (Degreed, Udemy) to learn, the application of what you’re learning is still up to you and requires an eye for opportunities. For example, if you’re in a meeting and you’ve just watched a talk about speaking up when you feel intimidated, consider how to practice that emerging skill.

2. Upskilling - Expand Your Current Skillset

Unlike reskilling which involves a 180-degree pivot, upskilling occurs when you improve upon existing skills and deepen your abilities and impact within your area of expertise. 

Just as an example to illustrate this: as a marketer, you will need to learn new digital tools and skills to better engage with your audience (and reach new ones) on emerging platforms. If you successfully improve and master those new platforms, you will simultaneously give your business a boost and set yourself up for future success in more advanced positions.  

How to Nurture Your Soft Skills

Most employers won't initiate training for you on the skills necessary to keep your job or to advance. Instead, take charge of your career and work on enhancing your skillset on your own. Here's how:

• Gain Leadership Skills: If you work for a large company, chances are that they provide internal and external training opportunities to you. Take advantage of any training on project management as the skill is sought after in every industry.
• Show Initiative: Take the initiative and approach your employer to ask for more responsibility. Make it known to your colleagues that you are available to take on more responsibility and ask for feedback on your performance. This is a good way to fill any gaps you may have in your experience.
• Participate in Teamwork: Try and cross-train with peers that have the skills and experience you want. If you’ve built good relationships with your colleagues, approach the ones you admire and ask them if you can learn from them.
• Get a Mentor: Consider asking for superior to become your professional mentor. Approach them regularly with thoughtful questions and try to be of value to them too.
• Develop Your Emotional Intelligence (EQ): EQ is all about nurturing a deeper awareness for the emotions in yourself, and by consequence intuiting the deeper needs of yourself and others around you. Perhaps starting new habits like meditation could help you develop in this area.

How to Upskill Your Hard Skills

Industries change, jobs change, and those changes can happen quickly. Even if you have a degree, don’t expect your university education to fully train you on the skills required to build a successful career.

• Look for Free or Low-Cost Training: In this digital age, some of the best training is simple to access online. Consider using Coursera, Udemy for free courses relevant to your industry.
• Consider Getting Certified: Check out certificate programs for in-demand jobs. Many of them can equip you for a new career with a smaller investment and much faster than a formal university degree.
• Freelance Your New Skills: While you are still learning, you may want to put your new skills to good use and tap into the freelance marketplace. People that hire freelancers are often willing to work with rookies in the field. It can help you gain experience for the job you want.

How to Approach Upskilling & Reskilling Your Employees as an Organization?

This is a critical time when we need to look inward at our organization and audit the talent that we have. This is especially true if our business is undergoing redundancies and hiring freezes. We can maximize the ROI on each person contributing to the business by analyzing their transferable skills.

Here are some ways your organization can do this:

1. Invest in employee volunteer programs

The concept of skills-based volunteering is becoming increasingly popular because it enables companies to leverage the professional skills of employees, and link their experience directly to business objectives. This in turn offers organizations. the opportunity to draw on new and existing markets, while also significantly impacting volunteer employees.

2. Embrace Mobile Learning

Smartphones and tablets play a crucial role in eLearning on the job, especially for those of us working from home right now. These devices are another way to reach your learners and capture your audience even for bites of micro-learning. It is crucial that L&D professionals develop a learning strategy that takes mobile elements into account, especially during times when remote learning is the only option.

3. Share Best Practices & Promote a Collaborative Learning Environment 

Collaborative learning is more important than ever now that we have less people. Sharing best practices are essential during times of mass redundancies, freezes, and furloughs because you only want to replicate success. Collaborative learning environments enable upskilling and reskilling that is seamless and intuitive to learners by allowing peers to educate each other.

4. Encourage Learning in the Flow of Daily Work

Subject matter experts should be contributing their own content so that learners who need upskilling and reskilling can come in and quickly learn from the best. They can also learn in the flow of work by sharing questions and answers with subject matter experts for a social learning experience that ramps them to where they need to be.

Encourage your employees to realize the power of learning from their peers. There is no need to wait for a class to start learning something new. Instead, motivate your team to learn from those around them by seeking out expertise from their colleagues. 

5. Recognize that Reskilling & Upskilling is More Efficient Than Recruiting

Studies have shown that the costs of reskilling are far lower than letting go of workers and hiring new ones. There’s a real business case for reskilling over recruiting.

6. Capitalize on Diverse Experience

Consider hiring individuals from unconventional employment backgrounds. Provide them with the skills they need to flourish, even in careers that traditionally have a fixed training route, such as accountancy or law. Ensure that internal opportunities exist for your employees to move, change and get pushed out of their comfort zones.

Continuous Learning for an Adaptable Workforce

The new world of work requires you to continuously hone your skills to stay relevant and improve your employability. As an aviation professional, you must take advantage of all types of continuous learning to help you build high-demand skills, whether you are trying to upskill current capabilities or need complete reskilling to build entirely new capabilities.  

For organizations in the aerospace and aviation sectors, the focus should be on building the right lifelong learning culture and making upskilling widely available to employees so that they can dynamically evolve their skillset according to changing needs. As employers, you should provide a reassuring tailwind, which will create a stronger workforce, and help the bottom line.