Ever wonder whether this is the best time to upskill yourself? Look no further!

Reskilling and upskilling is an absolute necessity for you to get ahead in life in this increasingly unstable world. Whether it be improving your communication, leadership or technical skills, there are just so many aspects of our personal life and career that we can improve on.

Do you see that course or webinar that you have been dying to take but just couldn’t find justifications for it. Read more below on why you should focus on upskilling in 2021!

Reason #1: Higher risks to jobs and income

The Covid-19 pandemic has proven to be devastating to those whose physical presence is required at their workplace to work. These include service industries of either selling products in traditional brick and mortar retail outlets, and manufacturing industries where the physical presence of workers is essential for the production processes.

Malaysia’s gross domestic product growth is expected to be the worse in record with the IMF predicting Malaysia will decline by 6.0% in 2020. Many traditional businesses have suffered and gone bust in 2020, threatening many Malaysians’ job security and prospects.

The transition for most of you during the pandemic to remote working or adhering to SOPs have been rough. For many, it has left people in the lower segment of society unable to cope with the sudden change in environment. For example, people who rely on being physically present and doing jobs that are considered low skill, now find that they are much more vulnerable to job losses if the company decides to cut their workforce.

Take a good look at your job and industry and examine how your job could be further affected by this or a future pandemic and also the possibility of automation. Determine which area of yourself that you would need to upskill to adapt to today’s and the future working environment. It seems like a future of pandemics is expected to be the new normal that every countries would have to face.

Reason #2: Keeping up with technological advancement

Expanding a bit more on the risk to your job in 2021, you will need to invest your time and money in upskilling in keeping up with the technological advancement today.

The recent trends of increased adoption of big data and artificial intelligence (AI) by companies to improve their business decision making, means that there is an increasing reliance on machines to make business decisions and not on humans.

Considering your skillsets and expertise, this could be a benefit or a threat to your livelihood. Inevitably, many of existing business and job processes would be replaced by a machine or AI, and much of the skillsets would tend towards information technology and how you use and interact with these technologies.

It has already disrupted the taxi and retail industry and is on the cusp of disrupting even more industries. The increased globalization of the world means that many companies around the world can quickly adopt technological improvements which could affect your livelihood in an instant.

Take note of the disruption that is happening in your field of work and take the necessary steps to upskill yourself.

Reason #3: Change of working culture and environment

Many of you have probably got used to the arrangement of working remotely, whether you like it or not. While the good news this year has been about the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, undoubtedly the pandemic has already deeply affected how companies and workers view working arrangements and environments moving forward. After all, future pandemics could certain occur again in the future.

Companies are investing in infrastructures, which enables more flexible working arrangements for their employees and this will inevitably reduce the need for physical spaces. This will entail the increased usage of software that enable you to work remotely, and possibly automate some tasks in your work processes.

The increased arrangements for remote work, inevitably could be a double edged sword for you. On one hand, you can reduce your time spent travelling to office and possibly contribute to an improvement in the environment with less travelling by motor vehicles. On the other hand, you will be deprived of physical social interaction with your team and colleagues which could reduce your productivity.

Hence, it is this changing dynamics that you have to upskill yourself in soft skills such as how do you communicate and work in a remote environment.

Reason #4: Affordable courses and webinars

One of the benefits of the pandemic was that it made webinars much more widely available to everyone. Many organizations were forced to move their courses online to take advantage of the trend as more and more people were learning from the comforts of their home.

The cost of providing these online educations theoretically should be lower due to the reduction in cost from not having to rent a physical space, and how participants do not need to travel to the training space.

You would have surely encountered many of these free educational webinars on many social media platforms or organizational websites. For example, Bursa Malaysia has increasingly shifted to a format of free webinars organized jointly by Bursa Malaysia and participating banks to educate the masses on investments and finance.

Online courses to upskill yourself are also getting cheaper and cheaper, with increasing preferences of learners to learn online. You can look at platforms like EdX, Udemy, Khan Academy, and many others more.

Reason #5: Government support for upskilling

Even though most of the Penjana initiatives last year have expired, there are many upskilling programs and incentives that are offered by the Government that are in effect now.

The government has initiated the Skim Jaminan Penjanaan Pekerjaan which will focus on providing 500,000 job opportunities. This initiative includes skills development and retraining programs, which are worth a whopping RM3.7bn. The minimum training rate which employers can claim increased from RM4,000 to RM7,000, encouraging higher opportunities for training and upskilling. For more information on this, please find out more on the program from PERKESO.

As part of the program too, about RM1bn is allocated for reskilling and upskilling initiatives for a target of 200,000 trainees in 2021. They include :

  1. Tax relief of tuition fees expanded to courses provided by professional bodies (limit of RM1000 a year)
  2. Fresh graduates eligible for RM3,000 voucher to pursue professional certification course
  3. Training to workers affected in the tourism sector
  4. Entrepreneurship programs for Malaysian armed forces

Considering the many programs and incentives, you can take advantage of them to reduce your cost of upskilling this year.

Reason #6: Optimistic start to the year

The joke is always that everyone starts off optimistic for the year, but fades out by the end of the year. However, you are in extraordinary circumstances now as everyone has collectively exited possibly one of the worst years economically and socially. The only way is up from now on.

Take this opportunity to reflect on your journey in 2020 and what you want to be better for 2021. Determining a course or subject that you are interested in is a good first step in setting the tone for the year 2021. You have gone through 2020, and learned the hard real life lessons of it. Now is the time that you can do something about it by reskilling and upskilling yourself to face the new normal.

The process of learning will rejuvenate your passion and enthusiasm for the year with potentially new exciting things to learn and apply to your life.

Conclusion

Start 2021 with a bang by focusing on why you should reskill and upskill yourself for the year. Considering that the economic and social situation is vastly different now before Covid-19, there are even more reasons to focus on upskilling yourself. There are more risks to your job and income, rapid advancement of technology that could make you obsolete, change in the overall working culture and environment, affordable courses and webinars, government support for upskilling and optimism moving forward.

 

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Let us know below in the comments what are you planning to upskill this year!