Workforce Transformation Program 101: A Complete Guide

Your business is constantly evolving—changing goals, launching new initiatives, and responding to market demand. One aspect often overlooked is the people behind your business. As your business develops new needs, your team’s skills can fall behind without you even realizing it.

Rather than spending money, time, and other resources to acquire new talent, facilitating upskilling through a workforce transformation program is often more effective. Historically, workplace transformation has demonstrated a positive impact on retention, productivity, and employee engagement.

Building a workforce transformation program doesn’t have to be difficult. With professional support, upskilling your team can be straightforward and highly effective.

What is a “Workforce Transformation” and Why Is It Important?

Workforce transformation is a process that aligns your employees’ skills, capabilities, and roles with your evolving business goals. It’s more than just traditional training and onboarding. Workforce Transformation Programs enable long-term development and demonstrate your business’ ability to adapt and innovate. 

At its core, workforce transformation ensures that your team isn’t just keeping up with change, but actively driving it. 

What Does a Workforce Transformation Look Like? 

The workforce transformation starts when you upskill, reskill, and adopt new technologies,  slowly changing how your business operates day-to-day.

It doesn’t have to always be a big and immediate shift, but with each small change, your business is entering a new era. 

Here’s what your workforce transformation could look like:

• Upskilling existing staff so they can take on advanced responsibilities instead of hiring externally.
• Reskilling employees in redundant roles and moving them into areas where your business has growing demand.
• Introducing new technologies and training your team to use them, reducing inefficiencies and improving decision-making.
• Encouraging a culture of adaptability, where employees are open to learning and change becomes part of the workplace mindset.
• Reinventing the work environment by introducing remote, flexible working options, allowing employees to finish tasks outside of working hours when they feel most productive. 

 

 

Industry Examples of Workforce Transformation

• Unilever's "Future Fit Plan"
• IBM's "New Collar Program"

How to Build a Workforce Transformation Program: Step-by-Step

 

Step 1: Understand Current Workforce Needs

Where is your business going, where do you intend to be in the future, and what is stopping you from getting there? Understanding this is key to creating a path towards an effective workforce transformation. 

Objectively analyze your workforce to identify skills gaps or redundant roles. Ask yourself questions like:

1. What is holding my team back from being great? Is it in my team’s control?
2. What technologies would save time and make my team’s job easier?
3. Is the price of this technology worth the efficiency/productivity it’d bring to my team?
4. What transferable skills does my team have currently?
5. Can those transferable skills better serve another department or initiative?
6. Are the skills I need right now able to be developed in my current team?
7. What team members do I think are most capable of adapting to our new business needs?
8. Would it make sense to combine job responsibilities that were previously separated by department into one role/team? 

Step 2: Develop Clear Goals

Define what you hope to accomplish with your workforce transformation through tangible SMART goals. Doing this will help guide your management while also helping your team understand what you are looking for. 

SMART goals do a fantastic job of determining how success is measured, giving you a solid idea of how you and your team are adapting. 

Here are some examples of what those SMART goals could look like:

• Specific: Train 80% of customer service staff on new CRM software to improve response times.
• Measurable: Reduce employee turnover by 15% over the next 12 months through increased engagement and upskilling opportunities.
• Achievable: Launch three reskilling workshops per quarter to prepare employees for emerging roles in the business.
• Relevant: Align leadership training with the company’s growth plan to ensure managers are equipped to handle larger teams.
• Time-bound: Complete a company-wide digital literacy program within six months.

Step 3: Partner with Pathways for Expert Support

A full workforce transformation can be daunting, but you don’t have to do it alone. 

For an effective workforce transformation program, you need the internal expertise to design, manage, and measure it. DIY programs often stall without clear structure or accountability.

If you aren’t experienced or don’t know where to start, Pathways is here to help. 

Pathways Education: Experts in Upskilling & Reskilling

We’ve been sponsored by businesses across Ontario and Canada to prime their team for the next chapter — upskilling, reskilling, and upgrading essential academic and computer skills where applicable. 

We work with each of your employees’ from start to finish, understanding where they best fit in your business’ future, enrolling them in applicable courses, and outlining the practical steps to get them where they need to be. 

We’ll work alongside your leadership to build a tailored program that matches your workforce needs and business goals.

Book a free consultation and learn how Pathways can make the process easier!

Step 4: Monitor Results and Adjust

Use your SMART goals as well as KPIs to measure how the program is performing and if it’s meeting expectations. Pay attention to changes in employee engagement, productivity, and retention.  

Some important questions to ask yourself in this stage are:

1. Has the transition been smooth for both employees and management?
2. Is my team actively applying the new skills they’ve learned in their day-to-day roles?
3. Does my team feel satisfied with their new roles, responsibilities, and skills?
4. Do the results match the SMART goals we set at the beginning of the program?
5. What feedback are we receiving from the team about the training and support?
6. Are we seeing measurable improvements in key areas such as efficiency, turnover, or innovation?
7. Has the workforce transformation revealed more areas for improvement that we missed in our initial analysis? 

Book a Meeting with Pathways to Get Started