Skills Transfer: the Key to Developing your Resources

Jean-François Boudreault
Vice-President et General Manager | AURAY Leadership

Today, competitiveness and innovation are essential to the survival and growth of any organization. Numerous strategies can help you stay competitive, including continuous training of workers (skills development) and customized training. Perhaps less well known than these two, but just as effective, is skills transfer.

What is skills transfer?

Skills transfer is the transfer of knowledge, skills and experience from one resource to another. This is essential to ensure that key skills are not lost when employees leave the company or simply change assignments. It also represents an opportunity to optimize performance, improve efficiency, create cohesion and foster innovation.

This process is also essential for standardizing work methods and reinforcing a team’s collective intelligence. It maximizes employee knowledge and optimizes production. Experienced employees can share their knowledge with the next generation. As a result, the company becomes less vulnerable to staff turnover, reduces training costs as well as the risk of knowledge and skills leakage, promotes resource commitment and mobilization, and strengthens its competitive position.

Skills development and its benefits

Businesses have every reason to capitalize on the talents they already possess, and to train and develop them further. The current market context (reorganization of work, teleworking, digital transformation, instability in certain fields, etc.) is undoubtedly accelerating the transformation of certain job profiles and the specific skills sought. Innovation, creativity, adaptability, collaboration, connectivity and openness are likely to be increasingly sought-after traits, whatever the hierarchical level of the position. To cope with these changes already underway, organizations need to quickly put in place training and skills development mechanisms to meet current and future organizational needs.

What’s more, given the correlation between investment in training and increased productivity, skills development must inevitably be included in the company’s strategic planning as a key activity, alongside finance and marketing. This practice needs to be formalized and seen as a differentiating and competitive strategy that can improve the organization’s standing. In short, it’s a leverage point, especially as competition is fierce in the job market and employees have more demands and choices. Focusing on developing employees’ skills also increases their trust in their employer, and thus their commitment. Companies that offer a stimulating environment through learning and training improve the employee experience and continue to enhance their brand image.

Integrating a customized training plan

Integrating skills development into a company’s overall strategy can be a major commitment for managers. How do you tackle the challenges of developing people’s skills to improve organizational performance?

Here are the steps we recommend for effective deployment of a training plan:

• Target the company’s current and future needs (strategies and objectives);
• Establish the skills profile for each job (current and projected);
• Evaluate the skills of job holders;
• Design an individual development plan (IDP);
• Establish skills development objectives and the means of achieving them;
• Identify skills development activities and pedagogical approach in line with the objectives;
• Monitor activities on an ongoing basis and adjust objectives as required;
• Train and assist managers in skills development.

Win-win continuous training

It’s worth mentioning that annual performance review practices are tending to change, giving way to processes that are increasingly oriented towards talent management and development. Reviews are now carried out on an ongoing basis, so that the manager can act as a coach with regular feedback meetings.

There is a wide range of skills development activities, which can be carried out in-house through peer training or mentoring, or by external trainers or platforms. Matching the plan to organizational needs is important. The secret of a successful skills development plan is to ensure that it matches the needs of both the employees and the company – a win-win approach. That’s why it’s important to articulate the IDP appropriately, and to choose pedagogical methods that are tailored to situations and individuals.

In short

Valuing skills development helps:

• Attract and retain competent employees;
• Mobilize and motivate employees;
• Better adapt to internal and external changes;
• Remain competitive;
• Prepare the next generation (knowledge mapping and transfer);
• Reduce turnover;
• Maintain commitment and confidence in the organization.

The current context of instability is likely to be an excellent opportunity to reinvent and reposition ourselves and implement methods and tools that will enable us to be better employers and employees. Agility and competitiveness don’t necessarily mean buying a new machine or developing an application. Sometimes, the transmission of knowledge and know-how combined with the enhancement of people soft skills are the best ingredients. Employers who decide to put their employees at the heart of their strategy are investing not only in their organization’s performance, but also in its longevity.