Digital knowledge and skills of employees in the age of digitalization

The demand for a specialized workforce, equipped primarily with digital skills, has never been greater than it is today. But, unfortunately, one of the significant challenges for Slovenian companies dealing with digitalization is the lack of a suitably qualified workforce.

Digitization as a driving force of growth introduces many changes in everyday work. Today, we expect new digital knowledge and skills from employees, more and more personal commitment, innovation, flexibility, and taking responsibility.

If we want to digitize our business successfully, we should approach the search for suitable employees prudently and with significant consideration. Employees are still the critical building blocks of any company.

Employees are the critical building blocks of any company.

Machines learn to make machines, and employees learn new digital skills

Many professions are already shifting to other industries. However, profiles with manual skills will still be in demand, especially those considered the best in their industry. In the future, a significant increase will also be noticeable among mechanical engineers, electrical engineers and development engineers with prior knowledge of informatics.

There is also an exciting trend, which shows that more and more women are choosing the IT field. Most of the employees who work in this field are physicists and mathematicians. Interestingly, about 80 % of IT programmers are not trained computer scientists but have learned this kind of knowledge themselves.

According to data released by Slashdata, there will be 26.9 million software developments in the world by the end of 2021. By 2030, however, that number will rise drastically, with 45 million expected to hit the market by then.

The digital director can successfully lead us into the digital future.

The key to the digitalization of business is the profiles that arise from an individual company’s field of business activity. These employees have to know what they want to achieve with the digitalization of operations. At the same time, they are required to a good overview of the organization of the company’s operations. Finally, they need to be aware of digitization prospects and be strong enough to achieve high priority.

That is why many companies are introducing the so-called Chief Digital Officer (CDO), who does just that – he connects the company’s activities with the benefits of business digitalization, sets priorities for such projects, and connects experts in business activities with IT and legal professionals.

Optimization is a condition for the digitalization of the business process.

In the process of digitalization of business, the legal aspect is also crucial because practically everything is possible today from the point of view of IT. Still, not everything is allowed or legally valid. Therefore, the rules linking legislation, business, and information solutions must be clear, in order to achieve the desired business benefits. The CDO should be very familiar with the content of the processes, the legal framework of these processes and possible technological solutions.

Digitization of the process does not mean that we move the approaches to the digital world, but we also need to think about their adaptation and optimization for digital business. For example: we need to ensure that the systems’ capabilities are interconnected, and that data is not duplicated. To do this, we need adequate competencies in business operations because, in the role of CDO, we need to know what we want to achieve with the digitalization of business. Of course, everything is possible in the IT world today, but the benefits do not always outweigh the costs.

The companies of the future promote interdisciplinarity and a desire to learn.

From the point of view of competencies and profiles of employees, we are looking for interdisciplinarity and, above all, teachability. Changes are fast and inevitable, so it is necessary to learn, know and make practical decisions. There are not enough such candidates for the job, as most come from a particular activity or a specific profession. In the digitalization of business, we are looking for breadth and intertwining of knowledge.

The employees of a digitalized company should have the ability to see the bigger picture

The employees of a digitalized company should have the ability to see the bigger picture and connect with different experts to achieve the desired goal.

We are aware of how important it is that our employees stick to their field and have the opportunity to acquire as wide a range of knowledge and skills as possible. Therefore, we offer our employees training in various work areas, which begins with getting to know the workplace. As a result, our employees must broaden their horizons, whether for external or internal training.

In our view, the main feature of the future professions will be their interdisciplinarity and understanding of content. There will be fewer and less typical performing professions. Although we will automate these tasks, there will be other professions with higher added value. The emphasis will no longer be on obtaining data, but on data interpretation and understanding of causes and consequences.