The Rise Up blog

According to a study conducted by leading global employment website Monster, 90% of employers believe that soft skills will become more important over the next few years. But why?

When we talk about skills, the main distinction that people make tends to be between hard skills and soft skills. The difference between the two seems fairly straightforward: hard skills are the technical skills required to perform a role, whereas soft skills are the people skills required to perform a role. However, it’s not always quite so clear cut. Take project management, for example. Does this rely on hard skills or soft skills? As we’ll see, this isn’t the only instance where hard and soft skills overlap.

In the UK, around three million people – some 10.5% of the employed population – work in retail, which is the largest private employment sector. This is hardly surprising, really, given that sales is one of the core functions of any business. A strong sales function enables companies to finance their ideas, attract and maintain customers, generate profit – and ultimately makes the difference between whether a company sinks or swims.

How have key skills changed since the pandemic and the emergence of hybrid working? In this article, Rise Up sets out the key skills required in a post-Covid work environment.

There’s a lot of choice out there in the LMS (Learning Management System) market. So much choice that finding the right provider and the right platform can be a daunting prospect. But, as with any technology purchase, you can increase the likelihood of making the right decision if you follow a few key steps. That’s what Dr Anu Obaro, consultant radiologist and online training lead at the National CT Colonography Training and Accreditation programme of the NHS and Neil Bradley, UK Territory Manager at Rise Up, talked about in their session Buyer Beware: How to choose the right LMS at this year’s Learning Technologies Conference.

It’s not so long ago that learning was seen as a one-off event, something that happened in a classroom. These days, however, we know that learning happens all the time and that when done well, it’s something that we actively engage in. Sometimes it’s in the classroom, but more often than not it happens elsewhere, when you’re actually working. It’s called learning in the flow of work.

As new technologies have appeared and learner expectations have changed, new trends have emerged over the past few years, including blended learning, mobile learning, social learning, and adaptive learning. This is all thanks to new tools, particularly learning management system (LMS) platforms.

For many years, education has been thought of as a process led by teachers or tutors, who set expectations that students have to meet. Now, a shift is underway. That’s because the views and desires of learners are being taken into account, and the training process is adjusting to better suit them.

Many people tend to think of skills and competencies as similar or even synonymous with one another, but in a learning context there are important differences between the two. Here, we’ll explain how skills and competencies differ and take a look at how organisations can use this knowledge to establish a competency framework – an invaluable tool when it comes to upskilling or reskilling employees.