Viewpoint: Reskilling, upskilling and multiskilling – who is responsible for it?

The knowledge and skills which we have acquired over years will not serve the purpose in an ever changing world. To initiate growth, we need to embrace new learning. Be it any position, the need for life-long learning has become important than ever before.

In this line, we have published an article on LinkedIn titled “Who is responsible for reskilling, upskilling and multiskilling ?” on Jan 3^rd 2019.

You can find it here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-responsible-reskilling-upskilling-multiskilling-dubey-ph-d/

We are glad to share the view of our readers regarding the importance of reskilling, curated from the comments on the article. The views from different industry professionals indicate that life-long learning has been considered as the essential growth factor to stay relevant in today’s era. According to them, the responsibility of learning new things lies with the individual and they should plan and create opportunities to reskill and adapt to the new-age environment.Let’s take a look at some of the comments and views.

Riyas P –  Project Director ( Funding and Global Linkages) at Kerala Startup Mission

Entity doesn’t matter. Whether it is an Individual or a Corporate or any other institution, if it wants to survive in the system, they need to upskill on a regular basis. If not, they will perish. I think it is a mixed responsibility of both individual and employer. Unlike in the past, if we do not relearn and re-skill, we will soon doom to perish. Corporates should include Life Long learning in their HR development plan.  I feel that the success of the individual or corporate heavily depends on their life long learning capacity.  Equally important is the pace of the learning.

Ajay Mohan Goel – Consultant – Skill Development, Training & Education and Entrepreneurship

My take on this topic is “I am Responsible for my learning and self-development.”  “I am Responsible for my career” (Responsibility = Ability to respond)

Devika Rani S R – Content Writer – National Skills Network -NSN

Reskilling enables individuals to utilize most of the opportunities with the right level of skill-sets. In today’s world individuals are compelled to stay relevant with the 21st century super skills.These skills drive people to move forward with their career aspirations and give an edge over others.As workplaces become more dynamic with the change in technology and processes,its high time that we value these skills as an imperative factor and find ways for reskilling ourselves.

Hari T N –  Head HR BigBasket and Strategic Advisor Fundamentum Partnership

“Unlearning and Relearning is both an attitude and a habit! These can be cultivated with practice.”

Sabarinath C Nair-Founder CEO at Skillveri: Simulators for Hands-on Vocational Skill Training

When I plunged into entrepreneurship, I hardly had any skills needed to run an entire organization. Survival of the enterprise required me and early team to pick up skills at a pace like never before and it happened, to our pleasant surprise. And it’s a continuous activity. As a tech enterprise, we need to constantly learn new things and methods, lest some new technology disrupts our very existence. My learning has been that when survival is at stake, learning will follow. It’s upskill or perish.

Murugan Kathirvelu – Business Consultant | Author | Mentor for Start-ups

Unlearning and adapting are the essential skill that is required to be successful in this age of disruption. Be it in employment or entrepreneurship. Developing this attitude early on is the key. Throw yourself into new opportunity with this attitude, and the work will teach you how to do it. This has been my way to push out of comfort zone.

Ghiridharan Surendran – Senior Vice President at FactSet, Country Manager at Portware

Unlearning and Reskilling are two very important aspects that every individual has to undergo continuously. Unlearning and reskilling is individual responsibility others like organization, manager,  education system etc can only facilitate, it is for the individual to plan for it; grab or create opportunities to make themselves relevant for the current and the upcoming time.

Ramesh Venkat – Head Industry Partnerships & New Initiatives -Logistics Sector Skill Council

Empowering through reskilling, upskilling or cross skilling should be focused on growth to construct a happier workforce. It’s should percolate bottoms up technologically & top down strategically with Compliances. This would help embrace diversity. If older ones don’t change, “The Change” dynamically would change them naturally. The current status of at least Logistics mid to senior Management hovers around late 30s to late 40 yrs of age. The next wave of influx is early 20’s & much savvy. This would by itself bloom to bringing in better efficiencies & parities in diversity in the Skilling landscape. Will be a combination of cogent skills+ education for survival.

Pankaj Trivedi-CEO at Hydro Pneumatic Techniks

 So called modernization, education system and slavery mindset has spooled skill structure. A son of mason, blacksmith and farmer was learning from his father and forefathers, now a lecture with throughout ATKT is teaching in a education factory and so called graduate civil engineer, mechanical engineer, agriculturalists are produced, from where to start skilling. Doctors son want to become engineer, engineer’s son want to become farmer and so on We have a spoiled platform, task is difficult, but it is a time to do it.

Mohamed Irshad – Ready for Business

I would extend this to tall trees and creepers. Skills grow or get imbibed by the inner PASSION (not just the JD or KPI) towards reaching out to uncharted spaces in search of more knowledge (Height or Sunlight) thus enhancing growth of self as well of one’s ecosystem (organization/business/society). Leaves reach out and extend themselves into the bright space, thus getting colored/recolored/discolored over time. Leadership cannot be stagnant on a certain platform, it will stunt the self and the rest of the ecosystem. The risks of exploring new avenues, driven by shared passion, get mitigated by Developing New Leaders, thus forcing a spurt in growth…