Importance of Attaining Digital Skills for the Employees

The future of work is going to look very different from what is now. SIRI and Alexa are recognizing our voice even if we are five meters away from our phone. That new chatbox feels totally real. Self-driving cars are no longer fiction.

A few years from now and that’s something like three years, Artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, masked 3D printing, biotechnology, virtual reality, deep learning, drone, augmented reality, smart objects will all be deeply rooted in our everyday life. Just like computers, phones or electricity are for us today. If this is going to happen and if it does, you will adapt when the time comes, right?

Life is good! You love your job, you have been working for a company for a few years and are comfortable in your position. You know what you are good at people like you and that last presentation you gave got you some amazing reactions. You are safe with your company.

In the meantime, you may see many articles speculating on the future of jobs, which you can mostly see 45% of all current tasks would be automated with the present technology. The World Economic Forum estimates 33% of jobs in 2021 don’t even exist yet!

What do They Know Right?

If you have time, just look at the supermarket introducing self-cashier machines. If you are at the airport checking in luggage, what the heck happened to other real people at the check-in desk? Gone, and replaced by machines!

But these are only the low-skilled jobs – do you think it right? Nope! Think again. In 2012, there were 150000 humans working in Wall Streets. Three years later automation has cut that number down to 100000. That’s one-third gone! But that’s only the mathematical and scientific jobs, right? Nope.

Think again. A Japanese insurance company for Koko mutual life insurance is already replacing all human insurance claim workers with an AI system that will handle customers more efficiently. There are many articles on the Internet written by even algorithms. We can’t even tell the difference with human written content thinking.

So, writers, tax consultants, marketers, technicians, lawyers, video editors, and many others to some extent have been impacted or automated by digital evolutions in a couple of years. What have you been doing? Probably watching Netflix and the problem is machines don’t wait and don’t watch Netflix.

So, what are the forces at play here? Basically, there are 10 million developers out there using increasingly simple and cheap technology to build new products and services. So as young as 12 are already coding the future. Even the safe company you work for is increasingly under outside trick. And, it’s not only Google, Amazon, Apple. There are now tens of thousands of startups out there eating away all sorts of jobs. At the same time they are also creating many jobs in the process.

Many experts now consider digital skills, or digital literacy a-must for all in the workplace to align with the progression of automation and digital advancements.

So, what are some of the most important digital skills with which you should be arming your employees?

Knowing how to answer your emails, to access a company’s files on Google Drive, or to tweak a website’s code are all digital skills that are increasingly gaining importance for today’s employees. At the same time, it is a bit difficult to exactly point out which digital skills are essential for today’s employees in the workplace. A few important ones are listed below, you may encourage your employees to gain skills in.

Multi-Device Capabilities

Modern employees need to be able to use more than simply a desktop computer or laptop. With many organizations providing smartphones, tablet devices and two-in-one laptops, they want to ensure their workforce can work on the go as well as in the office.

Cloud-Based Software

Employees need to get skills in using CRM software, Google Workplace, Google Docs or other cloud-based programs, which offer more functionality in terms of collaboration.

Data Analytics

In the era of big data, many companies are sitting on the untapped information about their customers, process and workforce. As digital transformation advances, the importance of data will increase. Knowing how to harness this data is important. Consider today’s complex global supply chain environment, where data is especially important to businesses in formulating strategies, streamlining operations, introducing new products and services. A great supply chain is built on great data. This is particularly true for organizations with a complex global supply chain.

Social Selling

With social media booming over these years, sales teams of the future will need to adapt social media selling skills. They will need to equip themselves with content and conversions, so they can build meaningful relationships with their clients

By arming your employees with a broad range of digital know-how now, you’ll be future-proofing what your organization is aiming to achieve in this increasingly connected world.

What are the important steps to be taken by the organisation to advance in the competition?

What are the important steps to be taken by the organisation to advance in the competition?

• Enhance the customer experience
• Fast track the digitization and automation of existing business processes.
• Optimise operational process to develop automated decision making and dealing with regulatory and fraud issues.
• Realign skills, organizational structures and roles with reinvented processes
• Change information models and revamping them to enable better decision making, performance tracking and customer insights.

Want your employees to learn more about Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence?

Get started at Promise Training & Consultancy, offering full-scale Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence training program.