Many businesses who have started the transformation are faced with a major issue – the lack of internal knowledge and expertise. A recent government report has found employers struggle to fill a third of vacancies last year due to lack of digital skills so the desire to outsource certainly allows companies to achieve a faster transformation.
The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace of change and according to one recent study, 77% of UK businesses have taken the financial decision to increase budgets in this area. The speed of these changes leads to the internal headache of additional training and recruitment. Companies need to identify and pinpoint areas to work on. In a recent report from Microsoft on this very subject they identify two distinct camps – the productive skills and the consumptive skills. Those who fall into the productive are the engineering/technical teams, whilst the consumptive are the users/endpoints.
All industries and most roles require various levels of digital skills and investing in up-skilling staff is paramount for future success in what is being called the 4th Industrial Revolution. Did you know the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee released a report called simply Digital Skills Crisis – Digital skills crisis (parliament.uk). This report was back in 2017 and very little has been done by employers or employees to improve their skills and knowledge.
With this year´s pandemic, the desire to learn and develop is encouraged with a plethora of on-line training. For those companies who are looking after cash flow at the moment there are plenty of FREE resources, sponsored by top Training Companies, University and Government organisations. You just have to look at The Skills Toolkit | Find a course | National Careers Service. I am looking at this myself – because everyday is a school day.
‘It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.’ –Claude Bernard