Market Perspectives

For organizations, opportunities for career growth and education are important to attract and retain workers as well as essential to address skill gaps. This emphasis on skills and learning has led to workers focusing on reskilling and upskilling. Traditionally, workers would need to return to a technical or trade school or university for more education; however, companies such as Skillsoft now offer a means to learn while working. With advances in e-learning, it is now possible for people to reskill and upskill at work to improve engagement and create their own career paths. Skillsoft markets itself as being designed to address the skills gap.

Skillsoft is an educational company that provides online professional development and learning services through e-learning. The company is focused on business- and IT-related courses and offers classes in a variety of fields.

Skillsoft’s courses are designed to help organizations create opportunities for their workers to reskill or upskill using self-service tools and personalized content.

To determine a worker’s strengths and capabilities or areas that need improvement, Skillsoft developed the Skill Benchmark Assessment, which consists of a series of questions, about 20 and takes about 20 minutes to complete. Upon completion of the Skill Benchmark Assessment, workers receive a score of novice, developing or proficient. Following the Skill Benchmark Assessment, employees can see how their current knowledge compares to what is considered proficient at a particular skill. The questions in the Skill Benchmark Assessment are curated based on the specific skills workers are trying to learn.

Skillsoft’s aim is to address challenges related to employee training and development and its learning management system can be used by small to large enterprise organizations. With the technology used by organizations constantly evolving and with more dispersed workforces, it is essential for effective collaboration and operational performance that workers have the opportunity to improve existing or learn new skills. Skillsoft provides organizations with a means to train employees on their own schedules, to save the time of managers and other co-workers. In the past, when an employee received training, it was not always clear how effective the lessons were; with Skillsoft Benchmark Assessment, organizations are better able to gauge the effectiveness of the training as well as next steps.

The need for upskilling and reskilling workforces, has led to several other organizations offering learning systems and content, including LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Udemy, Skillshare and Axonify. While there is some overlap between what is offered by Skillsoft and these other organizations, there are several differences. Skillsoft’s LMS platform called Percipio is available in multiple languages, a Skillsoft certification program exists and a wide range of courses and topics are available.

In addition to helping make more proficient workers, Skillsoft can aid in retention. Workers are likely to want to stay with a company that allows them to grow as a person and a worker. An organization that offers growth and development opportunities is more likely to retain its current workforce and attract new skilled workers. Products such as Skillsoft are significant for skills management and mapping. In fact, we assert that by 2025, the ability to manage an ever-increasing library of skills will cause organizations that are evaluating new LMS/LXP to make skills management and mapping a top vendor criteria in one-third of organizations.

Skillsoft will continue to offer a wider array of courses and training material to organizations. In the current work environment, with changes in technology and remote work, organizations which adopt LMS platforms like Skillsoft, to upskill and reskill their workforce will have an advantage. For organizations interested in educational platforms, Skillsoft might be an option to consider. Skillsoft’s course offerings and skills assessment tools enable organizations to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of their workforce and provide opportunities for learning and development to increase worker satisfaction and productivity.