How to support digital skills across generations

As our economies and busi­ness­es recov­er from the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, the pace of dig­i­tal upskilling required by the fourth indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion is only going to get faster. 

LinkedIn data projects there will be near­ly 150 mil­lion new tech­nol­o­gy jobs cre­at­ed over the next five years, rang­ing from soft­ware devel­op­ment to IT sup­port. For many busi­ness­es, there is an assump­tion that these posi­tions can part­ly be filled by tech-savvy younger employ­ees, who can then share knowl­edge with old­er employ­ees. But are the next gen­er­a­tion real­ly ready to meet the dig­i­tal skills demand­ed by the jobs of the future? 

Salesforce’s Glob­al Dig­i­tal Skills Index sur­veyed 23,000 work­ers across 19 coun­tries to deter­mine their dig­i­tal skills readi­ness. It found that more than three quar­ters (76%) of respon­dents didn’t feel equipped to oper­ate in a dig­i­tal-first world – and that while old­er employ­ees were more like­ly to lack appro­pri­ate dig­i­tal skills, many younger peo­ple also felt ill-equipped for the chal­lenges of the future of work. 

Digital native, not digital worker

Just 31% of Gen Z respon­dents to the Sales­force sur­vey said they felt very equipped for a dig­i­tal-first job right now, with few report­ing con­fi­dence in hav­ing more advanced dig­i­tal skills like cod­ing (20%), data encryp­tion and cyber­se­cu­ri­ty (18%) and AI (7%). How­ev­er, Gen Zers were more like­ly to be prepar­ing them­selves for future chal­lenges, with 35% cur­rent­ly train­ing or learn­ing new dig­i­tal skills.

This was despite near­ly two-thirds (64%) of Gen Zers say­ing they had advanced social media skills, sug­gest­ing that being dig­i­tal native doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly trans­late into hav­ing appro­pri­ate dig­i­tal skills for the work­place.

“Unfor­tu­nate­ly, very few young peo­ple have a clear pic­ture about what a tech­nol­o­gy career looks like. “Young peo­ple need to be able to con­nect and inter­act with role mod­els from their cho­sen indus­try,” says Sarah Mehrali, mar­ket­ing exec­u­tive at social enter­prise Stemettes, which encour­ages young women into STEM careers.

At the oth­er end of the age scale, just 17% of baby boomers (those born 1946–1964) report­ed being very equipped for dig­i­tal-first employ­ment, with a wor­ry­ing­ly low 12% engag­ing in dig­i­tal skills train­ing. Gen X (those born 1965–1980) didn’t fare much bet­ter, with only 22% being equipped with the nec­es­sary skills and the same fig­ure par­tic­i­pat­ing in train­ing.

In fact, just 17% of all sur­vey respon­dents con­sid­er them­selves advanced in work­place dig­i­tal skills, with half con­sid­er­ing them­selves begin­ners. So how can organ­i­sa­tions bet­ter sup­port all employ­ees to grow their dig­i­tal capa­bil­i­ty?

“A flat­ter hier­ar­chy would be a good place to start. Busi­ness­es need to incor­po­rate new starters into their gap analy­sis process­es to allow room for not only fresh ideas but also a fresh pair of eyes. Organ­i­sa­tions should be open to new social trends and the lat­est tech­ni­cal tools in order to inte­grate all skillsets on offer from employ­ees,” says Mehrali. 

Growing your digital talent pool

Anto­nio Weiss is a senior part­ner at pub­lic ser­vices dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion con­sul­tan­cy The PSC and author of The Prac­ti­cal Guide to Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion. He believes that it’s vital that busi­ness­es avoid ‘lazy assump­tions’ about dig­i­tal capa­bil­i­ties. 

“Dig­i­tal capa­bil­i­ty varies by region, by income and by over­all lit­er­a­cy. It’s gen­uine­ly a mixed pic­ture and you risk alien­at­ing and upset­ting staff by mak­ing assump­tions about them. Ask­ing employ­ees for their dig­i­tal con­fi­dence lev­els before start­ing train­ing is good prac­tice,” says Weiss. 

“Be clear about the dig­i­tal skills you need and require. Set stan­dards and expec­ta­tions for employ­ees. Pro­vide them with the time, resources and sup­port to build these capa­bil­i­ties. And most impor­tant­ly, don’t neglect the wider skills of trans­for­ma­tion – peo­ple and change man­age­ment, team­work, and rigour. With­out these, you can have all the dig­i­tal skills in the world but will still fail,” he adds.

The truth is there is no sin­gle mag­ic for­mu­la to suc­cess. Instead, a dig­i­tal-first world of work gives busi­ness­es the chance to rethink what tru­ly agile teams can look like. It’s also about build­ing a cul­ture of con­tin­u­ous learn­ing and adapt­abil­i­ty, allow­ing employ­ees to evolve their skills as tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues to change how we work. 

Empower employees

This requires delib­er­ate invest­ment in upskilling, train­ing and rein­vent­ing exist­ing employ­ees. The good news is that many employ­ees are already on board with devel­op­ing news skills. The Glob­al Dig­i­tal Skills Index report sug­gests that 82% of employ­ees are plan­ning on learn­ing new skills to grow their careers.

Con­sid­er the poten­tial of your tal­ent pool, rather than what they already do. Focus on employ­ees who already have dig­i­tal capa­bil­i­ties and encour­age them to teach their col­leagues. Bring in exter­nal tal­ent with new skills and encour­age them to upskill exist­ing employ­ees. 

Final­ly, give your employ­ees a say in what the future of your busi­ness looks like. All gen­er­a­tions of employ­ees – whether Gen Z, near-retirees or every­body in between – need a sense of belong­ing and pur­pose. Pro­vid­ing dig­i­tal skills train­ing is about ensur­ing that all employ­ees in a mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional work­force have the abil­i­ty to devel­op, design and do well in the future of work.