While both employees and employers believe that “upskilling” is necessary, more than a fewaren’t doing anything about it, according to the latest quarterlyRandstad Workmonitor survey.

More than a third of U.S. employees surveyed say they have donenothing in the past 12 months to upskill – defined as attendingworkshops, completing online courses, receiving consultation from aspecialist, participating in personal coaching sessions or pursuingfurther education.

The dearth in actual upskilling is despite the fact that 67percent of U.S. employees say they feel they need more training andskills to stay up-to-date. While more than 80 percent of employeesfeel they have a responsibility to upskill, only 40 percent of U.S.employees say they would arrange for and pay out of their ownpockets to upskill themselves. Nearly 40 percent of U.S. employeessay their employers have not offered and paid for anything relatedto upskilling.

“It is in a company's best interest to help their people grow intheir profession or into leadership roles, as this can offset thesevere skills gap happening in the market and increase employeeengagement and retention,” says MichellePrince, Randstad’s global head of learning and development.“Employees who are given opportunities to continually advance theirprofessional proficiency are what will keep a company relevant andstay ahead of the competition.”

There are generational differences in the way respondentsdescribe the types of skills they need to improve, with 66 percentof 18 to 34-year-olds saying they need to strengthen their personalskills, while only 28 percent of respondents 45 years and older saythey needed to boost their personal skills. However, 70 percent ofthe older respondents say that vocational upskilling was criticalto their development.

It’s paramount to stay up-to-date within one’s industry to avoidbecoming obsolete at work, Prince says. “You also have to be ableto apply that in the context of being an effective communicator andcollaborator when working with others,” she says. “Upskillingefforts therefore require a strategic combination of both technicalunderstanding and the human element to be effective.”

Prince recommends that employees take advantage of free andlow-cost learning opportunities for both technical and soft skills,including online learning options like study.com, Mind Tools,Coursera, Degreed, edX, ITPro.tv, Udacity and Udemy.

The Randstad Workmonitor is published four times a year,conducted online with a rotating set of themed questions amongemployees aged 18-65, working a minimum of 24 hours a week in apaid job (not self-employed). The minimum sample size is 400interviews per country. The latest survey was conducted from July18 until Aug. 2.