Digital transformation is more than a corporate buzzword — it’s been accelerated by the pandemic and the need to be more competitive on the market, and companies are anticipated to spend $2.8 trillion globally by 2025.

While much of this spending includes technology adoption and information technology (IT) costs, companies should be aware that no matter how much they invest in the latest communication or productivity tools, it matters more what their employees can do with them.

Digital transformation skills are, therefore, a major component of digital transformation considering that the half-life of a skill is about five years, which will put a major strain on companies that aren’t prepared to close skills gaps.

Therefore, there is a lot more pressure on learning and development (L&D) teams to deliver relevant and high-quality training, as well as corporate training managers to grow these skills in their own teams. Major disadvantages of training unpreparedness include:

• Financial losses: A global talent deficit of 85 million employees will cost companies $8.5 trillion by 2030, meaning that companies that manage to effectively attract and retain talent will have the most to gain.
• Productivity loss: Having a workforce with obsolete skills makes it difficult to be agile and adaptable to new challenges and market changes.
• High turnover: Employees are aware that staying in a position that doesn’t allow them to learn new skills or upgrade their existing skillset will make them less competitive, fearing that their job will not exist in the future, so upskilling and reskilling will be a major job perk that will motivate them to stay longer with a company.
• High hiring costs: The more vacant positions stay open, the more money employers will lose — internal mobility based on upgrading digital transformation skills is a safer option.

To tackle these issues proactively, here are four ways in which corporate training managers can grow digital transformation skills in their teams:

1. Focus on Technological Literacy

Instructors will need to be technologically literate to understand, use and assess the capabilities of learning technologies to address their organization’s needs. However, the underappreciated part of a trainer’s technological literacy is knowing when to switch platforms when current ones can no longer keep up with new developments — which is what digital transformation is all about.

Resistance to change is a problem in any team, including L&D teams. It’s simply easier to stick to what you know when it comes to training technology. But it can be a serious roadblock to overall training effectiveness.

Learning leaders don’t need to become engineers themselves. They need to be able to assess the pros and cons of each tool, ask the right questions when talking to vendors and not adopt a new platform just because it’s popular.

Technological literacy is a major digital transformation skill since it allows organizations to switch platforms more often for better results.

2. Promote Technological Skills

Digital transformation means that L&D teams will soon need more tech skills. The average corporate training team won’t only have a few designated people to work with eLearning, for example, as it’s a requirement in today’s business environment. Instead, each member will have to acquire specific digital skills for their area of expertise.

This means being able to use the latest technology and quickly adapt to new solutions, as well as work with training data, develop their research skills, have content curation abilities and be able to use technology to create better learning experiences.

The team will also have to adapt to some tasks being taken over by new developments such as artificial intelligence (AI). For example, intelligent learning platforms can make proactive, personalized recommendations based on skills gaps so trainees will know what to learn next. This is a good thing for L&D teams since they can focus on content creation instead. Plus, they will have to know how to use AI for training and make the most out of it.

3. Become Fluent in Training Analytics

The days of traditional training are over, mostly because the business environment is simply more demanding and the employees want more flexibility, such as just-in-time training.

To keep up, learning specialists should hone their analytical skills. Everyone in a team should be able to make sense of training data and make the best decisions based on it.

It will also allow teams to develop an interactive training process (agile learning) that will allow them to quickly detect what works and what doesn’t, and fix those issues before deploying to hundreds or thousands of learners. Plus, training analytics will allow them to create more personalized training paths based on career goals.

4. Switch to Learner-focused Design

The ability to identify needed skills is the number one obstacle to workforce transformation. This is a key area that learning specialists need to become experts in.

L&D teams are mostly used to identify needs based on job analysis and training needs assessment. Then, they create standard training courses for groups of employees, which may or may not cover individual learning needs.

Trainers need to start thinking more like marketers — the learner is the client, with their own specific needs. Training has to be personalized through individual learning paths or tailored learning recommendations. The flow of learning should be adaptive, meaning that trainees should be able to see what interests them most and be able to skip modules that don’t coincide with their level of expertise.

Key Takeaways

Corporate training leaders face more pressure than ever before to prepare their teams for the demands of digital transformation. That’s why it’s crucial to start thinking about their teams’ own growth and development, starting with becoming more technologically literate. Learning specialists will also benefit from acquiring more technical skills such as working with training data.

There’s an urgent need to see the bigger picture in terms of what the skills of the future are and the best ways to teach them. For this to happen, our mindsets will have to shift to a more learner-centric and personalized strategy.