By 2030, nine in 10 UK employees will need to reskill, according to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). For L&D teams, the challenge isn’t whether to act but how to do it effectively.
When priorities shift, learning teams face the challenge of ensuring people can adapt. This might be driven by new technology, regulatory changes, or how the business restructures itself. What organisations are realising is that the skills they need don’t always need to be sourced from outside the business, but within it.
Building an effective upskilling and reskilling strategy requires understanding how to connect learning to real business outcomes. Drawing on Totara’s work with organisations building skills-focused learning programmes, this article looks at what upskilling and reskilling involve, shares examples from sectors where it’s working, and sets out how to create a strategy that scales.
What is reskilling and upskilling?
While often used interchangeably, reskilling and upskilling solve different problems:
- Upskilling focuses on building an employee’s existing knowledge to help them perform their current role more effectively or prepare for the next natural step in their career path. For example, an engineer might upskill in sustainability compliance as environmental regulations change in their sector.
- Reskilling is about learning a new set of skills to move into a different job or function, often due to automation, restructuring or strategic shifts in the business. For example, a retail assistant might be reskilled to take on a customer success role in a digital team, learning CRM tools and online communication.
Organisations use both to stay flexible and reduce how much they rely on external hiring. It also means focusing on skills rather than job titles, which gives more room to move people around as needs change.
What are the key benefits of upskilling and reskilling?
A well-planned upskilling and reskilling programme delivers value far beyond the L&D function and helps solve real business challenges such as talent shortages, rising hiring costs and employee disengagement. Here are some of the benefits of upskilling and reskilling for your organisation.
Better retention and employee engagement
When employees can see a clear path forward within the organisation, they’re far more likely to stay and contribute at a higher level. Upskilling and reskilling opportunities send a clear message: “We want to invest in your growth, not just your output.”
According to the 2025 Linkedin Workplace Learning report, organisations that embrace career development outperform others on a range of positive indicators. They’re more confident in their ability to be profitable, and to attract and retain talent. For organisations that respond to this, the benefits extend beyond retention. A McKinsey report found that 42% of respondents say they are interested in upskilling or are already looking for opportunities to do so.
Reduced recruitment costs
Hiring externally is expensive and not just in terms of salary. You also need to factor in recruitment fees, advertising, onboarding time, and lost productivity. CultureAmp estimated the cost of replacing an employee starts at 30% of an average employee’s salary, rising to 200% for top performers.
Upskilling or reskilling internal talent means you’re dealing with people who already understand your systems, culture and customers. This means less time getting up to speed and a stronger foundation for long-term performance.
Improved visibility of skills and capability gaps
By embedding upskilling and reskilling into your learning strategy, you gain a clearer understanding of your workforce’s capabilities, both now and in the future. A well-integrated learning and performance ecosystem provides clear visibility into where your workforce stands today and where it needs to go to meet future business demands.
Take succession planning. If a senior leader or specialist hands in their notice, you’re often left scrambling to find a replacement. Targeted learning, mentoring and hands-on experience mean you already know who’s ready to step up when the time comes. You’re preparing people in advance rather than reacting when someone leaves.
Improved productivity and performance
When people have the right skills and competencies, everything flows more smoothly. Teams collaborate better, mistakes are reduced, and work gets done faster (and to a higher standard). This is because a well-targeted upskilling and reskilling strategy directly enhances productivity across the organisation.
Take Transavia, for example. They transformed their cabin crew training programme to elevate onboarding. By reskilling their trainers and implementing a blended learning approach, they achieved an 83.6% pass rate for new cabin crew in 2024, reduced onboarding time and minimised paperwork. Trainees felt more prepared and confident, which directly improved learning outcomes and operational efficiency.
How to approach upskilling and reskilling for your employees
You don’t need to rebuild your entire learning strategy from scratch. Here are some practical ways to make upskilling and reskilling work in your organisation.
1. Give learning admins more time to be strategic
One of the key advantages of the right learning management system is the level of automation it brings to almost every aspect of your learning and development programme, freeing up time for admins. Using automation will significantly reduce the time admins spend on what are often time-consuming but important manual tasks.
For example, in Totara, you can easily create automated learning pathways tailored to specific roles or career paths. These can be set using rule-based dynamic audiences based on each employee’s role, experience and interests.
2. Encourage peer-to-peer learning
When employees learn in isolation, valuable insights often stay siloed. Peer-to-peer learning encourages team members to share their expertise and collaborate on solving problems, making institutional knowledge more visible and accessible.
Totara supports seamless collaboration by weaving it directly into the learning experience. Learners can interact with content by reacting, commenting or discussing in real-time, similar to how they would on familiar social platforms. With dedicated collaborative spaces (known as Workspaces), employees can engage around shared roles, interests or projects, building an active culture of knowledge exchange and co-creation.
3. Make learning mobile-friendly
By making learning mobile-friendly, you remove one of the biggest barriers to learner engagement: time. Instead of worrying about falling behind with their roles and responsibilities, employees can catch up on learning flexibly; it could be on their commute or when they have a quiet hour in the evening. This flexibility increases the likelihood of completing the learning activities, particularly for frontline and operational staff who don’t typically spend their day behind a desk.
Tools such as the Totara Mobile App provide learners full access to their courses, learning plans and resources on the go. Learners can complete microlearning tasks, check off modules or review compliance content whenever and wherever suits them best.
4. Involve team leads
For your upskilling and reskilling strategy to succeed, you need your managers and team leads on board from the start. These are the people who see performance in action, understand team dynamics and have the day-to-day influence to encourage positive learning behaviours.
Too often, learning and development initiatives happen in parallel to operational work, leaving team leads out of the loop. However, when managers are actively involved in learning conversations, they can:
- Identify individual strengths and skills gaps.
- Recommend relevant learning opportunities based on real-time needs.
- Reinforce training through coaching and feedback.
- Help translate learning into performance outcomes.
Totara makes this easier by giving managers tools to track learning progress, conduct performance check-ins, provide feedback, and build a coaching culture within your organisation. They can also map skills to individual people and roles and create competency assignments to encourage users to develop particular skills.
5. Map out resources and adapt over time
Upskilling and reskilling the workforce is an ongoing process that requires clear planning, smart allocation of resources and the agility to respond to change. Before launching any initiative, it’s essential first to map out the resources you need. Ask yourself:
- What roles or skills are being prioritised and why?
- Who will create or deliver the content?
- What tools or platforms will be used?
- How much time can learners and managers realistically commit?
A CIPD report found that 42% of learning practitioners saw lack of learner time as a barrier. A further 41% cited lack of engagement as a top challenge. These challenges are common across L&D teams. This is where tools such as Totara can provide a huge advantage. It enables organisations to roll out role-specific learning journeys at scale, automate enrolments, track engagement and personalise learning pathways – all while giving L&D teams control over how and when content is delivered.
It’s important to keep in mind that even with a solid plan in place, organisational priorities, technologies and market demands can change quickly, meaning your strategy needs to evolve too. That’s why it’s just as important to build in mechanisms for continuous review and improvement. Track what’s working, spot where learners are dropping off, identify the learning content that’s getting results and see what content might need reworking. In Totara, this might involve looking at engagement reports or examining feedback to measure content relevance.
Getting upskilling and reskilling right with Totara
in this article, we’ve covered what upskilling and reskilling really mean, why they matter for retention, costs and performance, and how to make them work in practice.
The reality is that organisations need their people to adapt quickly. Skills gaps affect everything from productivity to succession planning. Totara helps you do this at scale through automated learning pathways, collaborative spaces for peer learning, mobile access and manager tools for tracking progress, and coaching.
However, upskilling is just one of many challenges L&D teams are juggling. If you’re also dealing with low engagement, tight budgets or proving ROI, our eBook “The Six Biggest L&D Challenges That Keep You Up at Night” explores practical solutions. You can download it for free here. Ready to see how Totara can support your strategy? Get in touch.
