For some businesses, summer is the busy season. And for others, summer brings a welcome change of pace. Fewer meetings, calendars filled with out-of-office notices, and a slowdown in projects give everyone a little room to breathe and a well-deserved break from the usual workaday hustle. Make no mistake — there’s still plenty of work to be done — it’s just a more relaxed vibe in summer.
For leaders living the summer slowdown in real time, the season’s slower pace is a golden opportunity to look forward and start laying the groundwork to make the most of upcoming opportunities. With fewer immediate pressures and a generally upbeat mood, summer becomes the perfect time to launch upskilling and reskilling initiatives and get your team ready for new challenges ahead.
3 Reasons to Make Summer the Upskilling and Reskilling Season
Here are three reasons why it makes sense to look at upskilling and reskilling initiatives in the summer:
- Lighter workloads translate into enhanced learning experiences
Timing is critical for the success of any upskilling or reskilling initiative. Training during peak work periods or critical project phases can divert attention and resources from immediate priorities, significantly impacting productivity and adding to your team’s stress levels.
Summer’s lightened workloads provide an ideal environment for easing your team into learning programs without overwhelming them. With a more relaxed and receptive mindset, they can engage more productively with courses and learning materials, leading to a higher return on investment for you and greater success for them.
- Summer learning sets the stage for a more productive fall and winter season
Strategic upskilling and reskilling efforts during summer can pay off in multiple ways. First, equipping your team with new skills and knowledge early on ensures they’re ready to tackle challenges and seize opportunities as they arise in the seasons ahead. This readiness enables you to plan more effectively with full confidence that your team has the capabilities to achieve your desired objectives.
Second, a mid-year skills and goals assessment during the summer season allows you to assess progress toward annual goals and leverage upskilling and reskilling efforts as accelerators to achieve them. If any goals are off-track, this summertime check-in allows for timely corrective action to realign efforts and resources.
- Beat the summer productivity slump with a refreshing change of pace
It’s no secret that the allure of summer weather, vacation plans, and a more relaxed atmosphere leaves everyone feeling a bit distracted. This isn’t purely anecdotal: studies show that, during the summer, workplace productivity drops by 20% and employees are 45% more likely to feel distracted. At a time when your employees may be feeling disconnected and disengaged, learning initiatives can provide a refreshing change of pace that keeps the work environment dynamic and engaging.
By transforming the summer season into a time of development and innovation, you cultivate a dynamic and forward-thinking workforce that feels confident in its ability to innovate and keep up with an increasingly fast-moving, tech-driven market. This proactive approach not only boosts morale and engagement, but also positions your organization for sustained success and competitive advantage in any season.
Seize Summer Skilling with General Assembly
Transform summer into a season of skilling. General Assembly’s upskilling and reskilling courses can be completed before the summer’s out—a perfect fit to keep your team engaged and learning new skills in short, manageable segments.
With over a decade of experience empowering organizations worldwide to transform their workforces, our team excels at developing and deploying reskilling and upskilling programs designed to address your unique business challenges and goals. From AI and data to engineering and development, product management, UX design, marketing and more, our tech training solutions cover some of the most in-demand and impactful tech skills in today’s market.
And if you’re seeking to expand your current team, our tech talent solutions can help you find the right talent for hard-to-fill tech roles through our Hire-Train-Deploy, Apprenticeships, and Ready-to-Hire programs.
For more information on how General Assembly can help you transform your talent, get in touch with our team or visit our enterprise solutions hub.