Dashe & Thomson Blog Reskilling and Upskilling: A Call to Action for the Industry

In the L&D industry, we don’t have an authority who sets the meanings of terms and strategies we see in learning and performance. You can ask 12 people the definition of something (in this case, reskilling and upskilling) and get 14 different answers. The purpose of this article is to demystify and get to the real power of what reskilling and upskilling are, and how to use them to achieve business outcomes. Let’s start with the definition: Reskilling and upskilling are similar; context is where they differ. Reskilling is learning entirely different skills for a new role while upskilling is learning skills that support or improve a current role. For example, you would reskill someone on soft/human skills for a promotion into a managerial role while you might upskill someone on a new programming language or product to use in their existing role.