Is “belief” enough when it comes to Digital Skills?

The mere belief you have sufficient digital skills may not be enough, you need the data to back it up.

According to a 2018 survey

“Only 16% of executives believe their teams have the capabilities to deliver their digital strategy”

The survey reported that less than half (45 per cent) of executives are confident in their own digital skills and ability to lead their organization in the digital economy, while just 16 per cent believe their talent pool has enough knowledge and expertise to deliver their digital strategy.

What do you believe?

If you are a leader in an organization which has a dependency on digital, cybersecurity, ICT or any other technology-based specialisms (which these days, is pretty much everyone), I have some questions for you:

1. Are you in the 16% that believe you are OK?
2. If you believe you have the required digital skills, is belief enough?
3. Wouldn’t you rather have the data so that you ‘know’ for sure if you have the required skills and experience in your workforce?

The Truth!

I’ve spent the last 20+ years helping organizations to confirm what skills they have, which skills they need, and how to close the skills and experience gaps and risks. Whether you’ve assessed it or not, you may have a view on the skills you have in the organization – however, most companies haven’t got an accurate inventory of their current skills. In my experience, for every company, the skills they really have are different from what they thought they had. Then, of course, you need a view on what skills you need.

Here’s what we generally find:

• There’s the good stuff in the middle – your known useable capability
• You have the bonus of the unknown capability – skills you didn’t know you had, that you need and therefore could utilise.
• You have the known skills gaps, which present a risk.
• But even more dangerous, are the skills you thought you had, but don’t. These often are the skills that cause the outages, security breaches and other issues.
• The unused capability will probably include skills that you will need in a few months time.
• It’s essential to have this complete picture, as you can make better decisions about the skills you develop, the ones you recruit or source from outside, and the risks you accept.

Many companies approach this in a way which starts with the current roles/jobs, and they only ask the workforce about those skills – you don’t get the complete picture that way, and you are almost certain to get skewed and inaccurate data.

Digital Skills Management Maturity

In this world of ever increasing change, survival means reaching digital maturity ahead of your competitors. With skills in VERY short supply, effective Digital Skills Management (DSM) is critical to your success. So ask yourself, how well does my organization do DSM, where are we on the maturity scale? We’ll provide a detailed analysis of your maturity together with over 40 pages of advice and guidance. All this for a 10-15 minute survey after you register here!!

Take action!