It has been reported that employees within businesses feel that the biggest organisational challenge they will face over the next five years within employment is dealing with changes to their day-to-day duties due to the advancements in technology.
Digital technologies and social media have already begun to challenge how employees do things. It has also been reported that many employees in today’s businesses do not feel that their current managers and leaders would be able to continue once technology began to invade the workplace and that in order to adapt, recruitment would need to take place to recruit fresh leaders.
However, it is common knowledge to businesses that the UK is, in fact, experiencing crippling shortages in digital skills, with technical areas such as cybersecurity and data science seeing particular demand. It is estimated that the digital skills gap will cost the UK economy £63bn a year in lost potential GDP.
In order to overcome leadership challenges during the digital age, training and development need to be utilised in order to provide academic and practical training support for the development of digital leaders.
In order to continue to grow a business, digital leaders must:
Develop Millennial employees
Millennials are currently the largest age group in the workforce, they currently hold 20% of executive positions. The Millennial employee is the first generation to grow up in the technologically growing world. This then allows them to learn and develop their technological skills.
It is, therefore, paramount that they are listened to and developed within a business as their knowledge is vital to growing within the digital age.
Be open minded
Leaders must maintain an open mind throughout the transition through the digital age. They must understand the possibilities that technology brings and be ready to embrace them. Listening to and communicating with employees has never been more important as digital ideas can come from anywhere.
Train and engage employees
Employees that work within companies who embrace digital are said to state they are loyal and more engaged with their business, team, and manager.
Employees believe that companies who embrace digital and ensure all employees are trained accordingly, are well positioned to grow by embracing external factors to improve performance.