Design your firm’s upskilling journey in 6 clear steps

We live in a time of enormous change, challenges and opportunities. Accounting firms worldwide are thinking about redesigning their organizational culture and building a future-fit culture that cultivates lifelong learning, innovation, employees' well-being, diversity and inclusion, sustainability and responsible growth.

The firms that will succeed in such a fundamental change management process will be the ones that first support their partners, leaders and employees on the upskilling journey — helping them to acquire the skills of the future. For example, we can't build a future-fit culture that fosters innovation and lifelong learning without ensuring that partners and leaders possess sufficient imagination, growth mindset, creativity and critical thinking (all these are future skills). Therefore, chief people officers must first lead a methodological upskilling process and then redesign the firm's culture. Skipping the upskilling process might prevent the firm's success regarding future-fit culture.

Below are six landmarks that chief people officers should go through while leading their firm's upskilling process:

Choose a model

Choose one inclusive and coherent model for future skills and ensure it is connected to the future of the accountants' and consultants' profession — a model that partners, leaders and employees will feel is relevant to their personal and organizational success. One good example is the 5 Lands model.

Start with the personal data

After choosing an inclusive and coherent model, make sure that partners, leaders and employees across the firm have the opportunity to get their Readiness Profile to the New Era of the Workplace. While doing so, verify that you use a valid and reliable questionnaire. Talking about the future skills without having a chance to see one’s own Personal Readiness Profile and reflecting upon the results will limit the results of the upskilling process.

Move on to the group data

After each partner and leader got their Readiness Profiles to the New Era of the Workplace, now is the time to create the group's dashboard — the group's strengths and next jumps (which are the areas in which they need to invest time and effort for further development). Connect this dashboard to the department or line of business strategy and ensure that partners and leaders possess the skills required to execute the strategy. Strategy without sufficient skills will remain successful only in your presentation.

Tailor a personal journey

Tailor-make a personal development journey for each participant, according to their Readiness Profiles for the New Era of the Workplace and their life and career aspirations. In the New Era of the Workplace, we cannot continue with “one size fits all” development. Self-development should be personalized. That means that each person can choose one or two future skills to develop, and the firm should provide them with a program for their journey.

Make sure you do a test-retest evaluation every six months

All participants in the upskilling journey must have the opportunity to measure their personal progress — to celebrate their achievements on the one hand, and to set new goals on the other hand.
The upskilling journey might be challenging and demanding; nevertheless, there isn't a more important and critical purpose than providing leaders and employees the opportunity to acquire the attitude, knowledge and skills of the future — the set of skills that will enable them to keep up with the coming changes and lead them toward well-being and success in an ever-changing world.