Journals
Inside, you’ll find a blend of lived experience, research, and emerging workplace trends, converging to inspire reflection, clarity, and action. Navigating change, nurturing talent, or simply carving out time to think more deeply are all imperative to your role as a leader.
Upskilling & Reskilling Your Team: People Development with Purpose
In my years working with small businesses and nonprofits, one truth has become crystal clear. While technology forges its striking path ahead, organizations thrive when their people are equipped to travel on that path. That's why I’m passionate about upskilling and reskilling, not just as buzzwords, but as cornerstones of a resilient, future-ready workforce.
Reframing Upskilling and Reskilling
Upskilling: enhancing your team’s existing strengths.
This looks like supporting your bookkeeper with professional development opportunities. Maybe enrolling them in a data analytics course. Or being your office manager’s biggest cheerleader as they carve out time to study for a project management certification. It’s focused, purposeful growth that builds confidence and directly improves your operations. When people feel supported in expanding their skills, everyone wins.Reskilling: preparing workers for new opportunities in their current roles or for stretch assignments.
While the very definition of a stretch project takes workers outside their comfort zone, it can morph into a safe space for personal growth. Maybe you notice your receptionist has a gift for storytelling. Perhaps it shows up in the way she recounts her grandson’s escapades with such vivid detail. So, you make the decision to invite her to try her hand at drafting content for the business’s social media. That one invitation might unlock a new skill set, a renewed sense of purpose, or even a future career path. Being a people leader means scoping the potential of your workers. Seeing their potential, nurturing it, and making space for your team to grow in ways they may never have imagined.
Why This Matters (And Why Now)
Every day, I see leaders frustrated by a shortage of talent or by smart, capable team members who’ve outgrown their current roles. In today’s fast-changing environment, organizations can’t afford to overlook potential or let great people feel stuck.
New tech = new challenges. AI, digital systems, remote collaboration: they demand fresh mindsets and methods.
Retention depends on growth. When we invest in people, they don’t just stay longer they feel valued, engaged, and creative.
Internal mobility saves money. You already know these people and your culture. Why hire externally when you can unlock untapped potential inside?
When we take calm, intentional steps with people at the center, transformation happens. It’s not about lighting paths to opportunity already present. Doing it thoughtfully maintains a lasting impact.
Onboarding really means…
Onboarding begins during the recruitment phase when an employer acclimates prospective employees to the company culture. Onboarding is an executive leader’s opportunity to build foundational rapport with a new team member. The duration of onboarding is role-based but is often 30 to 90 days from the employee’s start date. Throughout the onboarding period, new employees are thereby enabled and engaged.
Pending context, the word enabled can have a bad connotation. In this topic of onboarding, enabling an employee means creating space for them to be creative, innovative, and utilize their skill-set. Glint’s simple definition is fitting and states employee engagement is the degree to which employees invest their cognitive, emotional, and behavioral energies toward positive organizational outcomes. Make no mistake that employee engagement is a scrambled attempt to boost morale. Incorporating employee engagement in the onboarding plan and as a daily practice offers benefits such as work satisfaction, established lines of communication, and goal achievement.
Onboarding plans can include 3 phases :
A welcoming phase: This is an opportunity for the team to gather and celebrate a new addition.
A training phase: Role-specific training is one of the most important phases in the onboarding process. According to Survey Monkey, roughly 86% of employees say that job training is important to them—and nearly three out of every four (74%) are willing to learn things outside of work hours to improve their job performance.
A mentoring phase: This is often the last phase during onboarding. Executive leaders transition from teaching during the training phase to influencing, guiding, and directing new team members. Mentoring should continue throughout an employee’s tenure.