The Importance Of Digital Skills Training In The Digital Era

With rapid digital transformation, the nature of work is changing. The skills that were important ten years ago, may not be useful in today’s digital world. Today, it has become imperative to equip existing employees and the future workforce with relevant digital skills. 

To understand what the digital era demands from employers and employees and what skills are important to surviving in the digital world, we’ve divided our discussion into the following heads.

1. What is digital skills training?

2. Why is it important in the modern world?

3. What are the top 5 digital skills that can strengthen your workforce?

4. How a learning management system can help in digital skills training?

So let’s answer these questions one by one.

What is digital skills training?

Digital skills training is a process to introduce and inculcate digital skills in employees that are critical to business growth and development. It is the best way to attract and retain the key talent in your organization.

Why is it important in the modern world?

Digital skills training is very important in the modern world, which is rapidly changing and becoming more and more digitized. If you want to keep pace with change and withstand competition, then you need to instill digital skills in your workforce. As remote work, online shopping, and virtual interactions have become common things, digital skills are critical to business success.

Here are some important reasons why digital skills training is so important:

* To build brand awareness through social media marketing.

* To raise revenues and profits.

* To build long-lasting and strong relationships with customers and clients.

* To give a competitive edge to your opponents.

* To close the digital skills gap

What are the top 5 digital skills that can strengthen your workforce?

1. Social media

As social media users are increasing year after year, you need to leverage this opportunity for marketing purposes. Social media marketing is not just about posting updates on Instagram and Facebook and tweeting about one’s achievements. Social media marketing is a way to reach out to customers in a manner that will drive traffic to your website. Social media is the best platform to communicate with customers and keep them engaged and informed about every important detail. Through such platforms, customers can raise their queries by posting comments. 

2. Search engine marketing

Search engine marketing is a technique to increase the visibility of one’s company or organization on various search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing. By leveling up the visibility and searchability of the company’s products and services like eLearning courses, you can increase the traffic to your website which will, in turn, translate to increased sales.

3. Data analytics

Data is the oil that needs to be mined to get insights about a company’s and employees’ performance and use it for conversion optimization, divising sales strategies, and undertaking marketing initiatives. For instance, you can use data analytics to see how serious employees are about their training. Based on such data, you can revamp and restructure your training program for better impact.

4. Videos

Videos have become incredibly in the last few years, especially thanks to platforms like Youtube, TikTok, and Instagram. Videos that were initially accessed for entertainment purposes are now being used to deliver a variety of information. For example, videos have become tools to advertise and train the workforce. Since their usage and functionality are improving, it becomes essential for you to train employees to learn video making, editing, and video-based marketing.

5. Cybersecurity

For digital businesses that handle critical internal and customer data online, cybersecurity is critical. Training employees in cybersecurity matters can prove to be a cost-effective way to ensure your company’s data is never at risk. 

How a learning management system can help in digital skills training?

A learning management system or an LMS is all you need to provide digital skills training to employees. An LMS is a web-based tool that is used to provide online training to employees.

An LMS software can help in digital skills training in the following ways:

1. Fill skills gap

A skills gap arises when there is a gap between the skills possessed by employees and the skills demanded by an organization. You can use LMS to provide digital skills training to employees and enable them to use digital products and tools. When employees know how to use the technical tools, they will be more efficient in their roles.

2. Personalized learning

Digital skills training isn’t easy and can be really exhausting if employees have to manage both the training and their full-time job. 

An LMS offers the opportunity for learners to manage the speed and direction of their training. This means, letting the learners decide the time, place, and pace of their training, and allowing them to forge and follow a learning path that makes sense for them. Personalizing learning in this manner gives ensures all employees are learning as quickly and as efficiently as they can, and the training is not becoming a source of stress for them. 

3. Improves engagement and retention

Online training can cause mental fatigue as employees spend more time in front of the screen. Also, when they’ve got an hour-long pre-recorded video session to see, they can feel disengaged and disconnected. This may become a potential reason for employees to walk out.

Here, an LMS can be of great help to employees and organizations. For instance, by using the microlearning features, you can create and share small, bite-sized training videos that are easier to consume and remember. Microlearning has been scientifically proven to improve retention and comprehension in learners.

4. Easy restructuring of courses and content

In this digital age, technologies are constantly evolving and new advancements are being made every day. As technology changes, eLearning courses and content may become redundant with time. Hence, you need to keep updating your training content from time to time.

An LMS allows eLearning professionals to alter eLearning courses and content whenever needed and thereby keep employees updated with most latest developments. They don’t have to write everything from scratch; rather they can simply edit the existing courses and content and important video links, infographics, and audios. 

5. Quick assessments

Assessments play an important role in testing the knowledge of employees. Using an LMS, you can create a variety of eLearning assessments like branching scenarios, quizzes, multiple-choice based questions, etc, which can be quickly finished. Also, the scores and grades are immediately generated and hence, it eliminates the need for eLearning professionals to manually check training assessments. 

6. Increased efficiency

Organizational efficiency depends on employees and employees’ efficiency depends on the kind of training they receive. If training fulfills the needs and requirements of employees and directs them to realize their career goals, then their efficiency will shoot up. 

An LMS allows you to deliver training experiences that meet individual employees’ needs. The social learning tools, microlearning, and mobile learning features make training more fun, engaging, and personalized.

Conclusion

Digital skills training is a must in today’s time to create a digital workforce that can easily use any relevant technology. When employees are equipped with such skills, they can use them in the best interest of the organization. The best way to impart this sort of training is using a learning management system.