Is it time to reskill? 

If you do decide that gaining more skills would be of value to your career, here are some things to consider. 

Sometimes when we fall into a professional rut, learning new skills, whether formally or informally, can be a great way to give ourselves a new perspective or even take our careers in a new direction. 

Before you start putting your ducks in a row, there are some questions you should ask yourself about re-skilling or up-skilling including for example: 

• Will these advance my career or create a new one?
• Where does this skilling fit into my overall planned career trajectory?
• Can I create a business case for this training with my current employer?
• Where does this training exist?
• What is the cost? 
• What is the time commitment?

Once you decide that more training is in your future, you have to decide if it’s going to formal or informal study. 

If you choose to go the informal route, a good first stop is to identify someone in your workplace who has skills you would like to develop or possibly improve. You could, with permission from your manager or HR, approach the person in question and ask if they’re open to mentoring. Alternatively the organisation you work for may already have a mentoring program. If they don’t, it might be something you can suggest to your HR representative.

If you decide that something more formal is suitable, your first step should be to make a business case as to why this training is of value both to yourself, but also to the organisation or your team. Are these skills the organisation needs? Or needs more of? Why should they support you in this endeavour? 

Once you have a business case, your next port of call is investigating whether your workplace has any upskilling incentives. This could take the form of time off for study, paid or unpaid sabbaticals, long service leave, purchasing hours through pay deductions (essentially paying for more time off work), subsidies for course fees or even partnerships with organisations to deliver training.