Further education has to become a part of every company’s digital strategy [5 reading tips]

weiterbildung, digitale transormation — Source: pixabay

Digitisation not only changes professional profiles and career paths, but demands and promotes lifelong learning. Going to school and getting a job now means that you can’t stop learning after you graduate. Especially when developments are so rapid, that further education is necessary in the job, so as not to lose touch.

It’s therefore not surprising that, according to Bitkom’s latest study, the training and further education of one’s own employees is important or very important for 90 per cent of the companies. But this assessment must also be followed by action.

A central training strategy is mandatory

In light of the results of the study mentioned, there’s still a lot to be done in this regard. Despite awareness of the relevance of this topic, only four out of ten (43 per cent) have a documented training strategy.

During a digital transformation, not just the creation of a digital skills development strategy is a must, but it’s also a must for a central digital strategy. Only in this way can employee training be aligned with the general goals of the company as well as with the employees’ goals.

Part of the company’s overall digital strategy also involves executives addressing the issue and ensuring the right level of support and support, i.e. promoting a further education culture within the company and providing the necessary financial resources. Only in this way is further education an integral part of the corporate strategy.

In fact, little money and time are the biggest business challenges. Employees currently have an average of 2.3 training days per year. The annual average budget for further training is €709 per employee.

Personnel development promotes employee motivation

Training doesn’t just bring added value to companies, but also to employees. The opportunity to deepen your own knowledge and develop (further) competencies prepares people for new tasks and raises professional profiles. This increases employee motivation, their value, as well as the loyalty towards your own company, and thus has a positive effect on the keeping specialists around.

Initiatives such as organising an internal hackathon drive innovation and bring more cohesion to the workplace. Employees have the opportunity to put their expertise and skills into practice in multidisciplinary teams.

Employees’ digital development should, therefore, be on every business’s agenda.

Offline seminars are very popular

According to the study mentioned, almost half of the companies rely on external offline seminars and in-house seminars with external speakers (48 per cent each). Seminars such as those at the Digital Business School not only enable the development and expansion of urgently needed digital skills, but also active exchange with other companies that face the challenges of digitisation.

The most widely used digital training programs are PC learning programs, found at four in ten companies (42 per cent). Blended learning, or the linking of face-to-face events with digital forms of learning, is offered to employees at 34 per cent of companies. One-third of companies also rely on web-based learning programs.

The development of digital skills must be in focus

To develop digital literacy, it’s crucial which learning method is used with which focus. You can sense a clear development. It’s no longer just about building knowledge, but also about understanding and applying these new insights.

The importance of digital literacy as a central capability has risen by 14 per cent in the last two years. It’s noteworthy that this assessment varies greatly depending on the size of the company: The bigger the company, the higher the importance of digital skills. More than a third of large companies in Germany (35 per cent) consider digital literacy to be the most important capability of their employees.

The consolidation of digital skills enables companies to better withstand the pressure to innovate through online commerce and digitisation to be successful. Today’s challenges require a workforce capable of dismantling old structures and processes and innovating or replacing them with intelligent digital solutions.

Martin Groß-Albenhausen, Deputy General Manager of the Federal Association of E-Commerce and Mail Order Germany e.V. (bevh), describes the requirements as follows:

» Digital transformation demands both tools, know-how, and an understanding of what changes in the core, and how one must transform one’s own business accordingly – i.e. “know-what”. You have to learn to think about e-commerce in the first place. «

Transformation begins at first thought

Source: Digital Business School

Since knowledge and understanding are only half the battle in the digital field, innovative continuing education projects such as the Digital Business School (DBS) are being created, which also give plenty of room for practical application. The future e-commerce managers and digital transformation architects don’t just learn from theory and practice how to transform existing business models and how they can implement new approaches but apply what they have learned directly in their own company-specific projects.

And the concept works: In addition to numerous leading companies such as Grohe, Uni Elektro and Siegenia, the Würth Group is also focusing on digital employee development and, since its founding in 2015, has already trained more than 20 employees at the Digital Business School. The results of this digital strategy speak for themselves: As part of the Internet World Business Awards 2019, Würth was honoured with the best B2B online shop award.