Why upskilling is critical to digital transformation

One of the great chal­lenges for busi­ness­es over recent years has been the impact of digi­ti­sa­tion on the world of work. Whether the automa­tion of process­es on pro­duc­tion lines, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and chat­bots in cus­tomer ser­vice or con­tin­ued inno­va­tions in tech­nol­o­gy, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is accel­er­at­ing and a key pri­or­i­ty for the C‑suite.

And with good rea­son. Accord­ing to the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, 85 mil­lion jobs are at risk of becom­ing obso­lete by 2025 due to the impact of tech­nol­o­gy, with a fur­ther 97 mil­lion new roles set to be cre­at­ed. Just four years from now, the time tak­en by humans and machines to com­plete cur­rent work tasks will be rough­ly equal. To meet this chal­lenge, 84% of the employ­ers sur­veyed by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum were already digi­tis­ing their work­ing prac­tices back in 2020. 

The Covid-19 pan­dem­ic has only accel­er­at­ed this process. As employ­ees moved remote and cus­tomers bought online, organ­i­sa­tions were forced to rapid­ly adapt process­es they were pre­vi­ous­ly reluc­tant to. 

Digital acceleration

A 2020 sur­vey of 899 exec­u­tives by McK­in­sey found that the digi­ti­sa­tion of cus­tomer inter­ac­tions and inter­nal oper­a­tions by organ­i­sa­tions had accel­er­at­ed by an aver­age of three to four years since the start of the pan­dem­ic. The share of dig­i­tal or dig­i­tal­ly-enabled prod­ucts in their port­fo­lios had accel­er­at­ed by a stag­ger­ing sev­en years. 

So how are organ­i­sa­tions meet­ing the skills needs of this new dig­i­tal world? And how are they ensur­ing their exist­ing tal­ent pools are pre­pared for the upcom­ing chal­lenges?

“Broad­ly speak­ing, there are two main respons­es, with a large mid­dle ground. There are organ­i­sa­tions that haven’t pre­pared for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and are try­ing to find tal­ent in a pan­icked, knee­jerk way. They’re going to mar­ket and spend­ing a lot of mon­ey on peo­ple in oth­er roles who have the expe­ri­ence they need. Their view is that they have a prob­lem, so they need to go and buy a set of new tal­ent to deal with it,” says Stu­art Mills, vice pres­i­dent Trail­head & Ecosys­tem EMEA at Sales­force. 

“At the oth­er end of the spec­trum are those organ­i­sa­tions that had a good idea about dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion pre-pan­dem­ic. They are act­ing quick­ly and are agile in how they piv­ot, real­is­ing that with tech­nol­o­gy chang­ing so fast, expe­ri­ence can mean lots of dif­fer­ent things. Why go for a hire with 10 years’ expe­ri­ence when the tech­nol­o­gy is already 30 times dif­fer­ent from then?”

Instead, advanced organ­i­sa­tions have decid­ed that train­ing their peo­ple to learn and adapt in this new dig­i­tal world is the way to go. This can mean skills devel­op­ment for tal­ent already work­ing in dig­i­tal roles, along­side reskilling employ­ees from oth­er areas into tech­nol­o­gy. Doing so allows com­pa­nies to focus hir­ing on par­tic­u­lar gaps in knowl­edge, rather than whole­sale changes, says Mills.

“Upskilling allows you to see hir­ing in a dif­fer­ent con­text, in that you don’t over­do it and expect too much from new hires. You’re already look­ing under the hood of the skills you need,” he adds. 

Developing a growth mindset

Cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment where employ­ees are able to learn requires a mind­set shift. Much of the pre­vi­ous cen­tu­ry was about build­ing effi­cien­cy into work­ing prac­tices, reduc­ing waste and man­ag­ing employ­ees’ sched­ules. 

This reduced the space and time for employ­ees to learn new skills and to think cre­ative­ly about the future skills they might need. Deal­ing with the chal­lenges of a dig­i­tal, post-Covid future requires lead­ers to break out of effi­cien­cy and devel­op a growth mind­set, which is a will­ing­ness to embrace change and devel­op. Employ­ees need the space to learn.

Sec­ond­ly, lead­ers need to think about how their peo­ple want to learn and how to make train­ing as wide­ly acces­si­ble as pos­si­ble. 

Mills gives the exam­ple of Trail­head, Salesforce’s online train­ing plat­form to empow­er any­one to skill up for the jobs of today and the future. It includes online tuto­ri­als for begin­ner and inter­me­di­ate learn­ers who need to design, code for, use and admin­is­ter the Sales­force pro­gramme, along­side part­ner­ships with lead­ing edu­ca­tion providers.

“As skills move on so quick­ly, you need to break things down into bite­size con­tent that peo­ple can get excit­ed about. We sim­pli­fy things and get peo­ple to want to con­tin­ue learn­ing,” he says. 

“There also needs to be reward, which is where things like micro-cours­es and micro-cre­den­tials come in. Gam­i­fi­ca­tion is built into the Trail­head plat­form, which allows learn­ers to gain badges for mile­stones reached.”

Final­ly, the role of a teacher or guide can’t be dis­count­ed. Learn­ing needs to be curat­ed, not just con­sumed.

“We have a plat­form with thou­sands of pieces of con­tent, badges and more. You could just do it all by your­self, but the real­i­ty is that learn­ers go through phas­es of learn­ing and need to be guid­ed,” says Mills. 

“All learn­ing requires a hybrid or blend­ed approach. Social learn­ing and guid­ed learn­ing, where a pro­fes­sor or teacher push­es you and guides you through the con­tent in a shared expe­ri­ence is very impor­tant. 

“You can do a lot of learn­ing at home, but arguably you want to have that cre­ative, social ele­ment to learn­ing too. The good news is that this fits with the hybrid future of work, where we’ll alter­nate between remote and in-per­son work­ing,” adds Mills. 

Building a learning culture

Cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment where employ­ees are both moti­vat­ed to learn new skills and pro­vid­ed the space to do so takes time, but Mills has some key start­ing points for organ­i­sa­tions look­ing to do so. 

“First­ly, remem­ber the pur­pose of your organ­i­sa­tion. Refresh and think about that from a stake­hold­er per­spec­tive, rather than a share­hold­er one. From a learn­ing per­spec­tive, build agili­ty and resilience above all, as they’re key to suc­cess in an uncer­tain world,” he says. 

Next, think about the needs of your peo­ple and make your learn­ing offer­ing as wide­ly avail­able as pos­si­ble. 

“Some peo­ple are nat­ur­al life­long learn­ers, while oth­ers stopped at school and the idea of learn­ing new things is hard. Be aware of the need to have dif­fer­ent approach­es.

“Only then think about your focus, as this will evolve as you go through the reor­gan­i­sa­tion. If you don’t do pur­pose and cul­ture first, you’ll end up back on the road to effi­cien­cy. Most of all, make learn­ing excit­ing again.”

Covid-19 has rapid­ly accel­er­at­ed the impact of digi­ti­sa­tion on the future of work. To meet this chal­lenge, organ­i­sa­tions need to fos­ter a cul­ture of life­long learn­ing and skills devel­op­ment in their peo­ple, cre­at­ing the time and space for them to learn. Doing so is the key to thriv­ing in our new work­ing par­a­digm.

To find out how Sales­force is pow­er­ing the work­force of tomor­row, vis­it trailhead.salesforce.com.

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