Training must be based on ensuring the performance objectives of digital transformation are achieved.
Digital transformation is the term used to describe the change that’s taking place in organizations in response to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Until recently, organizations were built to reliably do tomorrow what they did today. They were not designed for our era of rapid technological change. For organizations to succeed in our new age, they need to innovate and respond to the rapidly changing environment they face. Many of the skills that have enabled them to be successful in the past remain important in repeatedly producing at a good price and quality, but there are a range of new skills that are needed.
In a recent survey conducted by Seatle-based IT services firm Veeam Software, 54% of organizations report that “lack of IT skills or transformation expertise” is a challenge with their digital transformation. (source: https://go.veeam.com/wp-data-protection-trends-2024 ) They feel they don’t have the basic capabilities for technology-based change. While recruitment will often be helpful in addressing this, most organizations understand that training and retaining their own people is going to be important.
Discussions and articles on digital transformation skills today help us understand the skills development areas that organizations think are important. Often, the emphasis is on specialist technical skills, change management, creativity, adaptability and broad digital literacy.
These are based on the technical needs for implementing, operating and maintaining the new technology, managing the change with employees, developing creativity that will help exploit the technology and making everyone more comfortable with and able to use it in their jobs. These areas are all relevant, but they are not sufficient for effective digital transformation. Rather than only focusing on technology introduction, training needs to be based on ensuring the performance objectives of its introduction are achieved.
Focus on strategic goals
Digital transformation should be based on the organization’s strategic goals. Strategic analysis, including understanding of the market environment, the range of technologies and their uses and the internal capabilities in the organization, is needed to determine organizational priorities for digital transformation. Introduction of technology to achieve these priorities requires a systems approach, integrating understanding across the organization to make decisions that take into account their strategic implications and possibilities.
Implementation requires collaboration within and between existing organizational silos. As implementation proceeds decisions with organization wide implications may be made – for instance on production lines where automation of one area may reduce or change work in another.
Once implementation is complete, exploitation of technologies requires more collaborative work – artificial intelligence may provide insights based on your data but this will only turn into value if you have the capability to take action based on it. In many organizations, improvement activity is slow and contentious and requires a much more supportive environment. Even with this, frequent process modifications without careful collaboration will create chaos as changes are made without adequate understanding of their implications. Collaboration and teamworking skills, supported by organizational leadership fostering a supportive environment are critical to digital transformation.
Within Lean and Agile operating systems models there is often understanding that training employees in a wider range of skills is needed to enable them to participate in innovation and continuous improvement. If each employee only knows a small part of the overall production process, they are less likely to have viable improvement ideas and be able to work with their colleagues to implement them.
In digital transformation this is even more important. Employees must have a better technical understanding, not just of new technologies, but of the processes they use themselves today and those in their general work area. Technical training on existing processes is a vital part of digital transformation.
Broader knowledge of the market environment and the organization’s overall strategy should inform all digital transformation activity, including technology focused innovation and continuous improvement. Regular, compulsory training to do this, supported by an effective communications process, is necessary to achieve an adequate level of understanding.
DX performance training categories
To help you consider the training needed for your digital transformation we have developed the following categories. Training for each work area should be considered in all of these, and plans developed to achieve the capability needed. Using the categories will enable you to reflect on the needs in each area and plan the training that each employee will receive. The categories are:
Tech Awareness: Awareness of the basic characteristics and uses of the main technologies available to organizations today. In a world where technological innovation is the main factor in competitive success, technological familiarity are essential.
Systems Awareness and Thinking: When organizations changed slowly there was plenty of time to think carefully about and adapt to the systems implications of gradual technological change. Digital transformation requires everyone to have greater knowledge of the integrational aspects of organization processes. This can be achieved through training that creates awareness of organization wide processes. Given that these processes will be changing more often in the future, this training will need to be updated and repeated regularly.
Technical Skills: Participation in process improvement that applies and exploits technology, for example making changes based on the results of AI analysis of corporate data, requires that employees have more technical understanding of their own work processes and the ability to contribute to modifications.
Collaboration and Innovation Skills: Collaboration, bringing together knowledge and skills from across the organization, is needed to effectively implement new technologies and maximise their contribution to performance.
Corporate and Market Knowledge: In most organizations successful digital transformation requires increasing empowerment at all levels. For example, acting on the increased knowledge of areas for improvement that is provided by the internet of things and AI cannot rely on all actions being approved at a senior level. Empowerment can only work if employees have a good understanding of organizational priorities (its strategy) and the context in which they are being pursued (the market).
These categories are a useful framework for considering your own training activity. Their application will be based on your own conditions. Many training options exist today that make corporate training easier. Sending people to off-site classes and losing their valuable contribution to today’s production is much less often needed than in the past. On site and / or online options are now available that enable high quality training to be much less disruptive to production and many companies are taking advantage of it. AR and VR will play an increasing role in the future.
