The value of upskilling
Our collaborative product development work with the Australian Open Fanbot had elements of upskilling throughout. The Digital Arts Network (DAN) team was ready to work on an innovative new project, even though they had never deployed a chatbot before. DAN was a unique client in that they were already a digitally-focused agency. They were able to successfully pitch a chatbot but recognized it as a niche technology and fairly new territory that the team needed to ramp up on quickly.
We worked with DAN to educate the team on the fundamentals of designing a successful chatbot—how to write conversation flows, how to train a bot for different use cases, and walking through the general technical limitations and capabilities of conversational UIs. DAN went from no prior bot experience to full deployment in just a short matter of weeks.
The value of upskilling is twofold:
- Saving time and money by adopting a new skill in-house
- Enabling the team to take on new opportunities post-training
We believe that digital transformation is an investment and it is never truly finished. Ongoing education is critical to the success of both in-house teams and partner developers.
Establish a culture of upskilling
Help your employees upskill and empower them to work on the most impactful digital projects for your business. Employee education has undergone its own digital transformation. You no longer need a higher degree to build upon career-critical skills. Employers hoping to stay competitive are investing in their employees’ professional development. Investing in employee growth is a win for everyone—skilled employees produce better work, better work drives business results, and results keep clients happy.
It is also important to get buy-in from your newest employees. Aside from upskilling current employees, enroll new hires in training to fill in any gaps from the beginning. Developing skills early on is critical to saving time (and money).
At Wizeline, we offer free courses through Wizeline Academy and invest in our client teams. We make it a priority to upskill our own employees and to cultivate the growing talent pool in the communities we work in. This past summer, we hosted Wizeline Rewire, an internal conference focused on learning, knowledge sharing, and cultivating creativity. The conference was produced and taught by leaders on our Design, Data, People Operations, Technical Writing teams and more. It gave Wizeline team members an opportunity to learn cross-functional skills and ideas.
Executives need to upskill, too
Being a CIO or CTO is very different today than it was ten years ago. Partner with a company that can spend the time to dig into your business and consult your team, regardless of the maturity of your digital products. Lean on your partners to help drive education programs that align with your product development goals. Prioritize your business goals and identify a focus. Perhaps data science is too broad a subject area, would courses in machine learning be more impactful?
If you can’t upskill, outsource
Sometimes the urgency is too great to wait. Establish a relationship with a partner that can handle burst capacity. Our engineering teams were created to meet that urgency. We have access to over 5,000 developers with a diversity of technical talent so we can source the right people for a project, for ourselves, and for our clients. We have partnered with trusted talent programs, such as HolaCode and Laboratoria, that offer upskilling-as-a-service and for incredible social causes. They’ve supplied highly skilled and qualified candidates, now leading development projects for our clients. Sometimes all it takes is finding the right partner.
We’ve worked with small and large clients to bring them up to speed on the skills and knowledge they need to accomplish their goals. Whether it’s UX design, conversational AI, or agile product development, we have people on our team who have done it before and know the importance of working within your processes. Questions? Reach out to us at consulting@wizeline.com. Our team is happy to answer any questions you may have about how to upskill your team or how to approach your digital strategy.
