What are reskilling and upskilling?

Digitalization has brought innovation and progress to the workplace. It’s time to find out about new hi-tech skills and the value they add. But how? Through reskilling and upskilling, two ways of training and transforming employees to boost their performance. 

According to a World Economic Forum report, automation and the split of work between humans and machines will increase the demand for green and digital professionals and create around 97 million jobs by 2025. But how to make sure training keeps up with digitalization? Through two key tools: reskilling and upskilling. 

What is reskilling?

Reskilling is a way of transforming employees that stems from companies’ digitalization and need for teams with hi-tech skills to manage innovative ways of working. It means learning fresh skills to adapt better to new roles and digital work.

What is upskilling?

It’s learning new skills for the same role to bolster employees’ output. 

How can companies introduce them?

To implement a reskilling and upskilling plan, companies must understand which new jobs and skills they need. They must also drill down into teams to determine each member’s training needs. That’s why it’s useful to draw up and implement a continuous training plan to enhance performance. Once in place, it’s important to assess how it’s going. 

How are we embedding reskilling and upskilling in Santander?

As a way of refreshing existing roles, reskilling and upskilling enable our teams to grow in line with the business world’s most important needs, which are driven by digitalization.  

Our scholarship programme is offering new opportunities and ramping up our teams’ training. Many of our programmes that cover reskilling and upskilling boost job skills and foster constant learning. 

We offer all that and more in our vast range of scholarships:

• Santander Open Academy 2021, based on seven key pillars and including Santander Tech, to build on digital skills; Santander Skills, to promote cross-skilling; Language, to learn languages in a work setting; Women, to promote female leadership; and Research.
• Digital Reskilling – Ironhack and Santander Estudios | Postgrado-Fundación Carolina, launched in January this year. Three hundred students and professionals residing in Spain, Portugal, the UK, Poland and Germany can improve their programming and web design skills, as well as embark on a new career in the digital economy. 
• Scholarships in collaboration with Fundación Carolina for Latin American and Portuguese students who want to study in Spain.

That’s how we demonstrate our commitment to providing more training opportunities that drive progress, as well as our wish to break down barriers and harness the talent of all our people.