5 organizations that can help with upskilling a workforce

Want to upskill your workers? Here are 5 organizations that can help

August 23, 2022 5:31 AM

Learning and development are more than just buzzwords employers can throw around to make employees feel valued. For today's employees, education and growth at work are very real expectations.

According to LinkedIn's 2019 Workplace Learning report, 94% of employees said that they would stay at a company longer if it's investing in workers' learning and development. And three years later, that remains true — demand for learning and development specialists increased 94% between July and September 2021, compared to the three months prior.

But upskilling, reskilling and even giving workers access to continuing education isn't easy, and workplaces can rarely take on those challenges alone. But a growing number of businesses and organizations exist on the market to make the process much more seamless.

From tuition reimbursement and professional coaching to second-language classes and education opportunities for the formerly incarcerated, employers have a wide variety of options when it comes to their employee base to learn new skills and better prepare for their future.

These are five HR-friendly programs and organizations that can help companies upskill, reskill, and grow their workforce:

Bravely

According to the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching, 1.5 million searches are made every month by people and companies looking for life coaches, business coaches and executive coaches. And while face-to-face coaching decreased sharply after the pandemic arrived, by 74%, online coaching skyrocketed, increasing by 57%.

Professional coaching platform Bravely partners with employers to offer one-on-one career coaching to employees on a number of office-driven topics such as performance management, boosting retention and employee experience and growth and development.

Guild Education

Employees' concerns over automation and student debt have caused a huge demand for reimbursement programs, according to a 2019 report by education platform Bright Horizons; education benefits now outrank more traditional benefit asks such as paid sick and vacation leave as well as retirement benefits.

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Guild Education works with employers to give part-time and full-time workforces access to high school diploma programs, professional certificates and college and master's degrees.

"The program offers 100% reimbursement and even covers books, so I basically pay nothing, and I had all these different avenues and degrees to choose from," says Damian Whilby, a Lowe's employee who's enrolled in online courses through Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). "It's not costing me a penny."

Emeritus

Eighty percent of working adults are interested in going to school, according to data from education program InStride. Yet only 40% know if their employer offers a tuition reimbursement assistance program and from those companies, only 2% of employees actually utilize them due to poor advertisement of those programs.

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Emeritus is an online education platform that works with companies to provide full-time, affordable courses from accredited global universities. Their classes — which include a number of programs and certifications across several industries — provide a more financially sustainable option for employees looking to advance their careers.

"For almost all of the companies that I've left, I felt that I was no longer being challenged," says Christina Gilligan, product manager at Spotify, who enrolled in an Emeritus course without the help of her previous employer, a financial decision she says helped her win her dream gig at Spotify. "So if companies want to keep talent, I think it's just so important for them to really focus on how they're going to grow their individuals and encourage them to stay."

EnGen

One out of every 10 working-age adults in the U.S. has limited English-language proficiency, according to a 2019 report by the National Immigration Forum. In fact, immigrant workers' economic contributions account for nearly $2 trillion of total U.S. GDP, according to a recent report from global nonprofit JFF, have higher retention rates than the labor force as a whole — the only talent pool growing at a pace to offset the impending retirement of baby boomers.

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Language upskilling platform EnGen partners with businesses nationally to offer full-length ESL language classes non-native English speaking employees can build directly into their work schedules. Companies can even train their own employees through EnGen to become certified to lead their programs and make ESL classes a staple offering.

"There's a huge focus on upskilling and re-skilling and helping incumbent workers get the jobs of the future," Katie Brown, founder of EnGen, recently told EBN. "But we just leave the ones who don't have English skills out of those conversations."

ViaPath Technologies

Between 70-100 million Americans have some type of criminal record, according to the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy organization. Once they leave the justice system, the unemployment rate for those with a criminal background is 27%, according to analysis by the Prison Policy Initiative, compared to the national unemployment rate of just 3.5%.

And among 25-44 year old formerly incarcerated people, 93.3% are either employed or actively looking for work, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. But in order to find a job, these employees need help reskilling themselves for the workforce.

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ViaPath gives formerly incarcerated employees access to technology and education to improve their personal outcomes during incarceration and post-release.

"Now, because of the Great Resignation and because of the pandemic, these folks are dying to get into the workplace," Tony Lowden, vice president of reintegration and community engagement at ViaPath, recently told EBN. "The retention is unbelievable because they are loyal and they are grateful and they want to be able to support their families. We have jobs that need to be filled."