(ThyBlackMan.com) Having digital skills is becoming more and more important in the workplace. While not everyone is expected to write code or compose a tweet, there is certainly value to be had in ensuring your employees have the right digital skills.
The future of many businesses lies in digital, as this is where the markets are headed. Businesses can no longer rely on traditional marketing and brand recognition – building up an online presence is the sensible way forward to ensure growth and longevity for your business.
Many businesses are dealing with a digital skills gap, but you can turn that around within your organization. Here are some ways you can build digital skills and help everyone feel more confident using them in the workplace.
Conduct a skills assessment
The first step towards upskilling your employees is to work out the skills they already have. There are different ways to conduct a skills assessment that will help you see who already possesses strong digital skills, and who needs to undergo some development. As well as a skills investment, it’s important to have some one on one conversations with your employees to identify the areas they want to improve for their own personal development, helping them to move up through the company.
Invest in training
Investing in training is important for your business. By providing training, you’re helping to strengthen your teams’ existing skills, while also helping them to develop as individuals. Some of the other benefits of training and development include improved job satisfaction, and improved turnover rates – helping you to hold onto your best talent. The right training will give your employees confidence, helping them to deliver the best results for your business.
Learning different digital skills takes time. In addition to providing training courses, you should also create some online resources that your employees can look back on and use as references.
Use the right tools to ensure consistency
Businesses can implement the right tools to help make it easier for employees to carry out basic digital tasks. Social media schedulers are fantastic for providing an authorization process prior to publishing, which can save your employees from making potentially damaging mistakes. The right branding software can help you maintain brand consistency for all content publishers, streamlining your processes and making it easier to control your brand. These types of tools are valuable to large and small businesses to help create a strong and recognizable brand.
Stay up to date on the latest trends
The digital world is always changing, with new trends and tools emerging all the time. Staying up to date on the latest trends will help you stay ahead of the curve, allowing you to keep assessing skills and need to do right by your business. From attending industry events to monitoring the competition, you will soon find numerous sources to help you stay aware of the latest developments in digital.
Encourage creativity
One of the most important elements of digital includes creative thinking. Creativity is essential to produce ideas and content, and it’s important to encourage great ideas within your business. There are different ways you can encourage creativity in the workplace, including providing effective direction, and brainstorms. A lot of digital work is automated, or will be automated, but there’s no substitute for creative thinking. Build a collaborative team who share ideas and are inspired by others, it could make a big difference to your marketing efforts.
Encourage and reward
Upskilling your workforce can help them enjoy different challenges, while also improving the quality of your business’ output. But all of the hard work to upskill your teams will soon wane unless they can see the value in what they’re doing. While providing job perks can win over your employees, it’s the recognition and rewards for their hard work that will make them stay with you. Show them how their hard work is paying off to keep your employees motivated and to help push them even further.
Building digital skills within your organization can have a huge impact both now and in the future. From building confidence with using different tools, to enabling individuals to bring new skills to their jobs, there is a lot that can be gained from digital training and development. While you shouldn’t expect overnight changes, taking a step towards improving your company’s digital skills will provide big benefits in the long-term. Take steps to build digital skills amongst your employees and help drive positive results for your business.
Staff Writer; Craig Moore
