SKILLING, RESKILLING, AND UPSKILLING A WORKFORCE: A PERSPECTIVE FROM KENYAN ENTERPRISES

Abstract

Across the globe, businesses are experiencing constant and accelerating changes in their work environments. In the labour market, the growing consensus is that the most competitive entities in future are those that will invest in reskilling and upskilling their workforces. This paper discusses whether Kenyan enterprises and organizations have embraced a learning ecosystem for their employees by offering them opportunities to upskill, reskill, and acquire new skills. An inductive reasoning approach was employed to make broad generalizations about the studied phenomenon. A mixed methodology was adopted where a survey tool comprising both open-ended and closed-ended questions was used to collect qualitative and quantitative data. A purposive sampling method proved useful in targeting expert respondents who are resourceful and knowledgeable about the subject-matter, and whose responses would yield information-rich data – all while addressing the challenge of the willingness, availability, and ability of potential respondents to participate in the survey. Moreover, with the focus being on the “what” rather than the “how” or “why”, a descriptive study design was used to observe and describe the skilling/upskilling/reskilling situation in Kenya. The findings showed that in the last five years, 67.8% of Kenyan organizations had planned some form of skills training programs, although the size of the enterprise was an influencing factor with 100% of multinationals reporting to have done so while only 25.9% of microenterprises had made similar efforts. Across the board, 70.4% of the organizations reported to be experiencing skills gaps in their workforces or expect them in the next few years. What is more, 100% of human resource specialists and trainers, as well as 96.9%, 91.7%, 89.5%, and 83.3% of owners/CEOs/directors, supervisors, managers, and clerks/administrators, respectively – said that the current workforce in their organizations needed some form of new skilling, reskilling, and upskilling to remain relevant for their roles or future positions. Generally, 94.8% of the expert respondents believed that skilling/reskilling/upskilling have critical roles to play in the future of work, especially due to the need to adapt to future work demands, continuously improving organizational performance, the changing work dynamics, adapting to new trends (e.g. technology), and remaining competitive.

Keywords: Skilling, Upskilling, Reskilling, Learning Ecosystem

CITATION: Muchiri, D. G. (2022). Skilling, reskilling, and upskilling a workforce: a perspective from Kenyan enterprises. The Strategic Journal of Business & Change Management, 9 (4), 190 - 203.