Digital Upskilling in Modern Business: A Must-Have Guide

Initiatives for digital transformation have gained momentum in recent years as organizations are taking active steps to improve their profit margins and productivity.

The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated these workforce transformations, making them a necessity in a world limited to remote working.

Since the global changes in the business sector are ever-changing, you should consider digital upskilling a necessity for your business. Digital upskilling refers to updating your skills to include digital skills.

This allows individuals and companies to understand how to use new platforms, tools, and software applications for all types of tasks.

If you don’t keep up with this digital shift, you automatically fall behind as the rest of the world strides forward in a digitally transformed environment. In this guide, we discuss the benefits of having a digital upskilling strategy for your business.

Benefits of Digital Upskilling

Experts estimate that there will be nearly 97 million new roles in the global workplace due to the large-scale adaptation to the division of labor among algorithms, machines, and humans.

A modernized workforce will be best suited to keep up with the global business changes. Here are some other benefits of providing digital upskilling training to your employees:

An Adaptable Business Model

When operating a business, you also need to think of the future and meet today’s needs. Digital upskilling lets you prepare your workforce for the future needs of your business.

By providing training on using new technologies and tools, you can ensure that more of your employees acquire the skills necessary to adapt as technology changes.

Upgraded Productivity

Having a digital strategy can increase employees’ productivity by using technology as a resource for increased work output. In addition, providing training on new platforms and tools will allow employees to work more efficiently with those technologies during their daily work.

Investing in digital upskilling means cultivating improved productivity among your workforce, which will strengthen the performance of your business.

Competitive Advantage

With the help of digital upskilling, your staff becomes more skilled and efficient with time, which provides a significant advantage over your competition.

Giving your employees more skills will allow them to work faster, more efficiently, and with greater accuracy. This translates to better outcomes for your business operations.

Reduces Recruitment Needs

Instead of hiring a new employee for every need, you can simply upskill your existing workforce. Along with saving you money, it also makes your employees multi-skilled.

Better Collaboration and Communication

The rate of communication within businesses has increased over time. Training employees on how to use digital technology makes it easier to stay in touch with colleagues and clients.

Digital Upskilling Strategy: Steps to Follow

The rate of upskilling digital transformation is increasing with every passing day. Here’s how to make it a part of your workplace.

Identify Goals and Objectives

Start by identifying your objectives. What do you want to get out of your digital upskilling initiatives? How do you expect digital upskilling training to benefit your company?

Figure out the current skill sets of your workforce. Who needs digital upskilling training? Who can train others? When all your efforts are well-aligned with your goals, you can expect to see the best results.

Choose the Tools

Decide which tools you want to use for digital learning. Test them to see if they are effective before using them in your business. You should also consider software applications that provide analytical data about how employees have been performing with their new skills.

This will help you evaluate the effectiveness of these plans later on.

Select Content and Platforms

Now, it’s time to identify what content and platforms will be best for upskilling your staff members or contracted workers. The type of content chosen depends upon your employees’ expertise level, skill set, age group, and interests.

If you are struggling to find digital upskilling content, free and paid courses are available on the internet. You should also consider joining an association or organization that can provide training materials.

Before selecting your platform, figure out what will work best for your business. For example, some companies prefer e-learning platforms while others like face-to-face interactions more.

Make a Budget

How much will it cost to upskill a particular number of employees within a given time frame? If you have a budget, then you can structure your plans accordingly. It is advisable to have at least three to five different training modules for each topic so that every employee can learn from different courses.

Plan Ahead for the Future

Both upskilling and reskilling can yield results for your business. But to accomplish this, you must plan for the future. Which skills should your employees have to meet your company’s future needs?

For example, if you plan to make a website for your business or use an Intranet, your employees must be familiar with different aspects of these tech additions to their workplace.

Work with a Tech Talent Partner

If you’re not ready to take on the responsibility of providing digital upskilling opportunities for your employees, you can rely on a tech talent partner for the job.

Despite massive investments, 70% of digital transformation initiatives don’t reach their goals. A tech talent acquisition and training partner can help you be a part of the other 30%.

Revature is an ideal partner, employing emerging tech talent that is well-equipped to meet the needs of Fortune 500 and small-scale companies. The company’s range of technical training disciplines identifies skills gaps and creates a custom curriculum to train the workforce in every imaginable modality.

To date, Revature has trained more than 10,000 software engineers in 54 tech disciplines. The company offers everything from upskilling and reskilling to talent assessment and workforce planning.

Conclusion

The World Economic Forum reports that 55% of the current workforce will need significant upskilling and reskilling by 2022. Businesses should have a digital upskilling strategy in place to meet this demand.

Digital upskilling is an effective solution for expanding your workforce’s tech capabilities. In this way, you can prepare your employees to meet the company’s future needs.

Make sure to align your upskilling digital transformation with your goals and objectives. But if you’d rather let a third-party service take charge of upskilling and reskilling in your organization, you can benefit from Revature’s Workforce Transformation program.