The need for digital skills within the office space wasn’t always obvious. However, as technology is evolving, so are the methods and techniques used for conducting regular business tasks and what’s considered the standard.

In that context, it’s very important for a company’s employees to be able to use the digital tools at their disposal in order to boost productivity and work efficiency in the workplace. While having knowledge of computers, the internal and a plethora of other elements from the digital spectrum wasn’t always a requirement, it grew into one and now there are many people in dire need of digital training. The nature of the digital industry dictates not only that employees must be able to use the latest tools, but are even required to do so, otherwise they put the entire work environment flow at risk.

What dictates the course of digitalization in the workspace?

When it comes to having digital solutions for many of the items on the job description sheet, you can bet that you are going to see quite a lot. Pretty much every aspect of conducting research or preparing and writing documentation now has a digital side and a digital tool that gets the job done in the fastest time possible. For example, anything between using search engines online to using document editing suites and using social media counts as a digital skill which must be perfected.

Meeting consumer pedigree

The thing about technology is that it swings both ways. If companies and industries can use it to sway consumers, the latter category can also put technology to use in order to gain information. Consumers are now conducting heavy research before any purchase and statistics show that they complete the better part of research regarding a product before they are ever engaged by an official rep for that service or product. This means that companies need to step up their game and to meet that level of digital prowess if they are to continue swaying consumers their way. This is a great example of why digital training is so important, as it has slowly but surely transitioned in full from an advantage to a necessity.

Why many companies shun digital advancement and adaptation

There are two types of companies that are reluctant to adopting the latest digital tools and technologies: The ones that aren’t aware of their importance or don’t know how to engage in such a transition, and the ones that don’t want to make the change despite understanding the importance of doing so.

The latter category is usually afraid of something, usually the time, energy and cost of making the transition. .

While those are valid concerns coming from an uninformed perspective, the truth of the matter is that in the grand scheme of things, digital training is rather inexpensive, especially in comparison to the benefits that it brings. It’s up to each company head to determine whether or not that’s the kind of investment they want to make, but that won’t change the fact that digital awareness is one of the keys to workspace efficiency and potent consumer engagement in this day and age.

Looking at it from a overview perspective, it’s really a matter of short term investment vs. long term benefit. And the numbers don’t lie, as statistics show that digital training and adopting digital techniques and tools results in satisfying return along the way.

The positive effect of having digital skills on the employee’s psyche

Despite all the effort put in with all kinds of projects and platforms for IT education in schools, not to mention the fact that all the newer generations are the direct result of growing up with a computer, there is still a significant shortage of digitally skilled professionals employed across all domains.  

This leads to an even bigger problem than that of not having digital-aware personnel employed, more specifically the fact that current day employees feel a high level of disdain or fear. The fear of unknown but more importantly the fear or failing will cripple one’s ability to learn or to showcase the proper native curiosity that would spark the need of learning about the digital tools and options put at one’s disposal today. Despite the guides that are available online (for example this one and this one about Microsoft Excel) you can’t always rely on staff to find the right guides and work through them themselves

Training your staff in the digital arts can have immense benefits. That stands true not just for the obvious side of things, where employees will be able to conduct operations and make use of the latest tools thus increasing company efficiency and revenue, but also when you think about the employee’s psyche.

Receiving training and becoming competent when it comes to using today’s technology will boost morale and yield insanely pronounced motivational returns. When employees are confident, they can also be motivated and this in return means that they will be more ready to engage in further development of their skill set.

In conclusion, investing in digital training for your staff is something that has guaranteed beneficial results. Even though it might seem like a risky investment, it’s important to keep in mind that at the core, it’s a very practical investment given the amount of modern technology that is used today. Being able to enter a new era of technological advancement both as a company and as a collective can be highly beneficial to any company, and those involved should expect to see massive returns in more than once department. Even though there are as mentioned, multiple departments that are getting a literal upgrade from an experience such as digital training, the one that benefit the most has to be productivity.