The digital age is stretching continuously into every aspect of our daily living. Those in information technology aren’t the only ones that need to be prompted by this change. It’s the reality that people must be aware of in our present world. Since such change accompanies a necessity for digital expertise, and companies are competing to gain an online presence, there’s a stress on the importance of digital skills in the modern workplace. The House of Lords in the U.K. even stressed in 2015 that digital skills are what people should learn as a third ‘core’ subject together with numeracy and literacy.
Likewise, most of the last two generations, namely, the Millennials and Generation Z, have grown with digital technologies at their hand. They are kept up to date in a natural way. However, older generations and those who haven’t received the opportunity to have digital technology are digitally disadvantaged, and effort is required for them to become digitally literate. If you’re just getting started with the internet and the use of online tools, you can learn more by visiting different websites.
Technologies are advancing fast and are changing business practices, which can impact how people do tasks. This situation gives the need for skills adaptation by job searchers following the present status.
Relation of Buyer’s Journey to Digital Skills
Change in the customer’s journey is one of the most significant factors in the increasing importance of digital skills. Businesses served disruptive ad messages via television, radio, and print advertising to consumers in the past. At present, consumers now control the power by searching for information online to help solve their issues, finding out the solutions, and choosing the best of them.
Such change has placed considerable importance on different organizations’ ability to market themselves online to reach these new kinds of consumers. To do that, the organization must have the proper asset of digital skills.
What Digital Skills Does Modern Workplace Needs?
In the modern workplace, it’s increasingly impossible to know which digital skills are needed or not. Digital literacy is a language. The more digital skills you have, the more you can use and speak it. Likewise, some examples of digital skills are changing the website’s code such as e-commerce, original content creation, UX/UI design, data analytics, network and information security, social media marketing, and digital marketing.
For entry-level positions, the minimum digital skills that are needed are the ability to do tasks such as:
- Researching information online
- Creating and managing online documents and spreadsheets
- Communicating via email
- Basic device management such as installing software updates or connecting to the internet
- Using online calendars and efficiently managing schedule
- Screen sharing during a video call
- Handling sensitive information in virtual ecosystems
- Safely using cloud-based collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, or DropBox
Overall, you may need to add skills related to your particular role depending on your career direction.
Digital Skills Gap
There’s a claim that digital skills are entering all kinds of work. Entertainment, retail, medicine, and communication are all turning into areas that require digital skills. On the other hand, the development of old jobs isn’t the only thing that makes this skill vital but also in creating entirely new work. Fear of a digital skills gap driven by the growth in the digital economy versus the number of individuals capable of working in it exists. It can affect the number of employees in newly established jobs.
There are consequences of having digital skills gap, and it’s not just for job seekers but for the industry itself. There’s a finding from the European Commission that 38% of workplaces suffered adverse outcomes due to the lack of digital skills. While in the United States, businesses also lose USD$1.3 trillion annually due to the digital skills gap. This digital skills gap is more stressed out in highly-skilled professions.
Despite such findings, there’s still a chance for people of varying ages to enter a new sector or get a much better job by honing their digital skills. Moreover, getting these skills has never been more accessible. Professional training companies and school coding clubs are happy to educate people concerning such.
Final Thoughts
Digital skills in the workplace are needed more than ever in today’s world. It’s because the digital age is transforming every area of people’s lives, and companies are continually fighting for a digital presence. Technologies are also progressing faster and are on the road to changing business practices. This change leads to adjustment on people’s work tasks. Therefore, digital literacy that leads to digital skills should be vital for a business to avoid the digital skills gap that can affect their operations.