As technology is constantly developing, it is important to ensure you and your team are up to date with your digital literacy. Digital literacy is the ability to leverage technology and digital tools to interact, learn, and work. Without digital literacy, you risk falling victim to digital disruption and losing your competitive edge.
You can incorporate digital literacy into your training efforts to ensure your company is ready to adapt to new emerging technologies. Throughout this blog, we will help you to understand digital literacy, why you need it for your business, and how you can develop a digital literacy training program.
The Need for Digital Literacy
Daily office life has greatly changed throughout the last few years. Since 2020, there’s been a large increase in the amount of hybrid and remote jobs that require workers to be online and use digital tools to complete daily tasks. As a result, in-person jobs have begun to adopt digital tools to encourage collaboration and communication across physical and digital barriers.
Digital literacy is not limited to just being able to read content online. Digital literacy also includes understanding collaboration tools, basic cybersecurity and IT skills, data management, and more. By being able to share ideas, work materials, and data quickly, you can quickly increase work productivity and reduce communication delays.
Lacking digital literacy skills can create frustration throughout your company. Skills as simple as email etiquette or keyboard shortcuts can change a two hour task to a thirty minute task from improving communication and efficiency.
Building a Digital Literacy Training Program
When you set out to build a digital literacy training program, you will start the process the same way you should start any training program: with an assessment of current skills. To perform a skills gap analysis, you should work with department leaders in your company to create a plan to gather feedback on the current state of skills.
Your company can look at this feedback from an individual basis or a department basis. In both cases, you will compare the current skill level against where the skills should be to meet business goals. To determine where skills should be to meet your company needs, you will need to look at current trends in your industry to see what skills will be necessary to keep your business relevant.
Once you have an understanding of your market and developing industry trends, you can establish a hierarchy of skills to create a priority guide for training. Then you will need to measure your company’s current skills through skills assessments, reviewing key performance indicators (KPIs), and feedback from all employees. Once you have done all of this, you can identify skill gaps and begin to develop training efforts to improve gap areas.
Now that you know what skills your training will focus on, you can develop the training methods you will use to mold the training program to different learning styles. Develop a curriculum that outlines everything your employees will learn and the methods that will be used to teach the topics.
For digital literacy, you can use e-learning, workshops, and practice sessions to teach topics such as different softwares, cybersecurity, digital tools, and advanced technology you may incorporate into the work space. You should compare the training delivery method to your work atmosphere to find the best fit for your training, whether it be virtual, in-person, or hybrid learning.
Outside of ensuring your training is covering the topics you need to improve your employee’s skills, you also want to ensure your training engages your employees throughout the process. Using real-world scenarios, learning incentives, or even gamification can help engage your employees and promote learning retention.
Overcoming Challenges in Digital Literacy Training
Although you can teach an old dog new tricks, it doesn’t mean it will be easy. New technology can be daunting for both the tech savvy and tech illiterate. It can be easy for your employees to think that their current technology works well and not see the need to change and update your systems, creating a resistance to change.
The best way to combat resistance to change is to focus on a growth mindset where you discuss skill gaps as a challenge your team will overcome over time. Here are a few ways you can cultivate a growth mindset in the workplace:
- Create smaller goals to make steps towards a larger goal
- Develop incentives to celebrate hard work
- Utilize open discussion to share ideas and foster collaboration
- Reframe errors or failures as learning opportunities
While you are planning out a digital literacy program, you will want to make sure that it is easy to teach in all of your locations, and adaptable to all of your employees. You cannot implement a new program if an entire department misses out on the training. It is also important to have ongoing training efforts with digital literacy because technology is constantly evolving.
Another challenge to prepare for is the necessity of leadership support. When management does not support training efforts, it can create doubt and resistance throughout the employees they oversee. Before you roll out a training program company-wide, make sure to meet with your management team and discuss the goals and benefits from the program. You can create a thorough presentation to discuss how the training will benefit the company, each department, the investment being made, and more to gain support.
Success Stories: Digital Literacy Transformations
The benefits of digital literacy training can be seen across different industries from tech companies like Microsoft to retailers like Walmart.
Microsoft made sure to develop a digital literacy training program when they were making the transition to Office 365 to focus on the cloud collaboration tools. As a result, they saw a 30% increase in cross-department collaboration and a 50% reduction in document sharing complications.
Walmart also used digital literacy training to ensure their employees could transition with their new handheld inventory devices. Thanks to the training, there was a 25% reduction in inventory errors. Employees were also more efficient with inventorying, allowing them to spend more time helping customers and producing a 15% increase in customer satisfaction.
Implementing Digital Literacy Training: Practical Steps
1. Perform a Skill Gap Analysis
As previously discussed, the first step to any training program is a skill gap analysis. This will help you grasp where your company’s skills currently are compared to where they should be to maintain a competitive edge.
2. Set Defined Objectives With Key Performance Indicators
Outline the markers for success for your training program as clear measurable values. As you progress through the training, you will measure the progress and compare it to the predetermined KPIs to evaluate the effectiveness of your current methods.
3. Develop a Flexible Learning Path
Every person learns in a different way, so adapting your training to alternative learning styles can help improve engagement. Make sure to include a variety of tools, such as interactive modules, videos, written guides, and real-life scenarios.
4. Integrate Training Into the Workplace Culture
There are many ways training can be a part of your workplace culture. Using on-the-job training can help encourage your employees to apply new elements to their regular work. Providing resources like an online training platform or mentorship could also encourage employees to seek out assistance on their own. Allowing employees to train through a team could also create collaboration and reduce training stress.
5. Monitor Progress, Evaluate Methods, and Make Adjustments
Make sure to get feedback from trainees and your leadership to make sure your training is effective. Trainees could give insight into how the training could be improved to fit their daily work. Leadership can give details about if they have seen a change in productivity from the training. Once you have feedback, you can adjust your training to fit the needs of employees and to include new training methods based on industry trends.
Training Assistance With Workforce Essentials
As the workplace changes and adapts to new technology, so will the training. By incorporating new technologies into your training, you ensure your employees can adapt and engage with evolving technology that is relevant to their field. As your company continues to focus on digital literacy, your employees will grow more confident in their digital skills and be ready to work in different spaces.
As you look ahead to your future planning endeavors, Workforce Essentials is here to help. At Workforce Essentials, we offer training services that are tailored to fit your needs. Make sure to check out our full list of services to see how Workforce Essentials can help you take your training to the next level.
