How to upskill yourself

• What does upskilling mean, and why do employers value it? 
• The difference between upskilling and reskilling 
• Where to look for upskilling opportunities 
• How to develop your career plan

Upskilling is more than just a buzzword, and today there are more options than ever for growing your skillset and branching out into new areas. 

But what are your options, and how do you do it successfully? Here are some tips.

As the name suggests, upskilling is all about developing your capabilities in order to reach higher levels of competence. This can refer both to building on skill areas where you already have a degree of proficiency, and also learning something entirely new from scratch. The ultimate idea is that you come out of the process more highly skilled than when you started. 

From this description, it should be pretty obvious why employees who are keen on upskilling are an attractive proposition to employers looking to fill vacant roles within their teams. Firstly, such employees typically have more skills under their belts, likely making them more capable members of the team, who can help to move the business forward. Secondly, if you’ve upskilled in the past, chances are that you’ll want to keep doing so in the future. This means employers know they’re be hiring someone who’s likely to become even more of an asset over time, rather than someone who’s looking to settle into a comfortable job where they don’t need to challenge themselves.

In your searches around upskilling, you may have come across a related term, reskilling. There are definitely areas of overlap between these two as, ultimately, they’re both about expanding your skill set. However, there’s one key difference. 

Reskilling typically refers to someone learning an entirely new set of skills, specifically to perform a different job. Doing this is common for people who are looking to change careers, and need to learn a whole suite of different skills to do this. Upskilling, by contrast, is more associated with learning or building skills that will help you develop within your current role.

Given that upskilling simply means learning new skills and capabilities, there are several ways you can go about it:

Starting a course from the comfort of your home is an easy and convenient way to upskill. 

There are endless numbers of providers here, including free options. A couple of good examples include Open Poly and General Assembly, but if you Google “learn INSERT DESIRED SKILL online”, you’ll find heaps of options to choose from.

Across New Zealand, universities, colleges and other organisations offer onsite evening classes on everything from Te Reo Māori to computer courses. If in-person learning works best for you, this might be a better option than online courses.

If you’re not working right now, or have spare evenings or weekends, volunteering with charity groups is a fantastic way to learn new skills and put them into practice in a real life organisation. Not only will this look great on your CV, you’ll be doing good at the same time. 

Bonus tip: upskilling doesn’t just refer to ‘hard skills’ – for example, learning a specific software tool or getting a new trade qualification. Improving your soft, transferable skills is vitally important, and working with charities is a good way to do this.

In particular, you’re likely to get better at:

• Written and oral communication.
• Teamwork.
• Administration and organisation.
• Promotion and marketing.
• Empathy and cultural awareness.

It’s important to remember that upskilling through charities can both be on the ground, or online. Many charity groups are crying out for people to help them with digital tasks like website building, database management or online fundraising.

It’s in your employer’s interests that you continue to learn and grow professionally, so most companies are happy to help their staff upskill. We recommend talking to your manager about what possibilities exist. Common approaches to upskilling at work include:

• Access to courses: some businesses might have access to paid online courses they can pass onto you for free.
• Professional development plans: your manager can help you work out what you want to achieve, and how you will do it. For example, if you want to improve your communication and public speaking skills, they can let you take the lead in meetings to grow your confidence.
• New projects: when possible, your manager might give you the opportunity to explore new projects or responsibilities that align with your upskilling goals.