Upskilling: a necessity amid increasing automation
INDUSTRIES around the world are facing a skills crisis. The introduction of automation and shortage of skilled personnel in the era of the digital economy is rendering the services of long-serving employees irrelevant. Managements are in a dilemma about whether to forcibly preserve old jobs, or to embrace emerging technologies. Upskilling or enabling existing employees with relevant skills for the new economy could help industries address this dilemma.
Upskilling can help existing employees learn new skills which would gear them up for similar or different professional roles.
Upskilling is not the same as reskilling. According to an article published in the Strategy+Business magazine (July 2019), reskilling is commonly associated with a short-term effort focused on specific skill requirements. Upskilling, on the other hand, enables employees to acquire skills more valuable than their present set of skills, thus helping them become relevant workforce for the future economy.
Upskilled workers are particularly suited to take up new jobs created in a technology-heavy digital economy. For example, in many apparel manufacturing factories around the world today, sewbots automate sewing. This makes the traditional job of stitchers irrelevant to a large extent. But new roles of supervisors who can monitor the operations of sewbots, their inputs and outputs, are being created.
The National Skills Development Authority of Bangladesh has been working as the apex body to formulate an upskilling policy at the national level, and to execute programmes to achieve its vision. The policy outlines the objective, scope of work, and evaluation and monitoring methods. Successful implementation of a skill development policy would help the workforce of Bangladesh get ready for jobs of the future.
It is important to understand the needs of the existing workforce and to upskill them, through both organisational and community-based initiatives. According to a report published in May 2019 by the Dhaka-based think tank Centre for Policy Dialogue, there are 3,856 operational apparel manufacturing factories in Bangladesh, employing about 3.6 million workers. As per the study, about 21 percent of these enterprises in the apparel manufacturing sector are using advanced technologies.
With technological advancements and lower costs of adoption, more such factories are expected to adopt new technologies. These factories will gradually use more sophisticated equipment in sewing line, cutting line, fusing line and finishing line. Many such factories have started deploying automation technologies or robots to perform certain tasks. They are also automating their support functions by deploying enterprise resource planning (ERP) and business intelligence (BI) applications. These technologies also help the management with better information and faster decision making. Such changes will require the workforces of the apparel manufacturing sector to be upskilled.
Indeed, sectors across the world are undergoing changes in how they are using technology and workers’ skills. Since the apparel manufacturing sector contributes significantly towards Bangladesh’s export revenue, it is important that the sector stays ahead of global competition and upskills its workforce faster.
Behavioural upskilling of the workforce should be the most important area of focus. Existing workers need to learn to cohabit with automation technologies deployed in the workplace and focus on production. The workers must upskill themselves to manage production and work in synchronisation with automation technologies.
The next step in upskilling would be to get workers ready for the digital environment. The fourth industrial revolution is creating more work opportunities for digital products and services. The workforce needs to be upskilled for digital production of goods and services. Digital upskilling would be applicable across sectors and ranks of employees. Every organisation needs to plan comprehensively for this upskilling journey, with respect to its uniqueness and digital maturity.
The cost of upskilling may appear significantly high in certain instances. For example, if an employee is upskilled while doing his/her job, the cost would involve providing learning infrastructure and instructive assistance. But if the upskilling effort becomes a full-time activity, organisations would need to pay workers their wages during the upskilling period, as well as bear the cost of upskilling infrastructure and instructive assistance. Organisations need to assess and identify upskilling requirements and plan accordingly. Costly upskilling programmes may be initiated as community-based programmes.
In the digital economy, the community-based upskilling approach is going to play a significant role. Under the traditional skill-building approach, organisations operate independently based on their own business requirements. In the digital economy, these organisations need to collaborate with each other to set up investment-intensive upskilling infrastructure and encourage their workforce to enrol for these programmes.
The government can support such community-based initiatives by providing proper assistance, such as accreditation. A national upskilling registry could be set up using modern technologies, such as blockchain, to host the upskilling records of each participating worker, which could be authenticated and verified by the participating organisations.
The government should also be able to monitor the improvement in incomes of upskilled workers and provide necessary inputs to policymakers for further refinement of upskilling policies.
Given the several underlying problems, the entire upskilling journey may seem highly complex. It is important that government bodies and private enterprises work together to address the upskilling needs of the workforce and to ensure their successful journey towards the digital economy.
