Digital Skills

(878 words/4 minute read)

The Skills Sets of Tomorrow are Here Today

If telework and hybrid environments, and now AI haven’t been enough to let you know that we are living in a digital age, know that it is only going to get more technical as we go. The question becomes: what are you doing for your staff and teams to enable them to do their jobs no matter where, how, when, or what the technology shifts to?

Skill sets and certifications are powerhouses for professional growth today.  And digital comfort is not simply an in-demand skill, but it’s going to be a requirement for anyone working in business for years to come.

Digital Comfort

But that’s the key - it’s got to be digital comfort. How comfortable are your people with technology?  The simple example I give on this is to ask yourself how comfortable are you switching from Microsoft Teams to Zoom to WebEx to Go To Meeting?  And I even had to do Zoho web conferencing tool the other day.  Would you or your teams be ready to go on any meeting regardless the tool?  Each of those tools can feel radically different yet, if you have digital comfort, you see that they’re all capable of sharing video and audio and text messages and chat and utilize the same features for online communication.  In fact, I love that my AI note taker jumps into whatever platform I’m on and just starts taking notes. My AI is more comfortable than many people I work with and this is a skill that we’re gonna need to be able to work WITH our clients and customers.

Creating a Safe Environment to Learn

We want to work together on solutions which means collaborating WITH technology. So my challenge to you is to ask how your companies are helping their teams and staff get comfortable with their digital skill set. Sure there are trainings you can do online, which can be great to help with technical learning needs.  But that is only one aspect. Having safe environments where people can try and experiment with what’s different, what’s new, what’s changing and evolving is where and how our teams can build that comfort. If you are comfortable in these environments, are you letting your other team members drive the sessions? When a team member can’t figure out a setting in an online meeting do you encourage other members to help them even though you are all in virtual meeting?  Do you encourage others to share in our online spaces and welcome hybrid situations?  Do not be afraid to think outside the box as that’s exactly what is needed for tomorrow. We have no clue what the box is going to be so we want to be ready.

I first had way too much fun trying to create an experience to help people understand the nuances of a hybrid scenario or running a hybrid event. We actually did not talk about what is hybrid and just simply go through a checklist like many typical trainings do.  Instead, we set up a physically able hybrid environment.  Then we encouraged people to either participate where they wanted to learn the most or simply join where they were comfortable. Those risk takers got to try tools and approaches in a safe environment to find out what they really needed to know.  Those who went to their comfort zone got to experience, again in a safe environment, what their stakeholders are going through. They got a new perspective not so much on their own capabilities, but in how they’re making others feel as they facilitate and as they run their sessions. One of the best feedback items, was that the session itself was a good reminder of that even with all this digital technology, there are still real people on the other end. People we need to collaborate and work WITH and so we need those digital comfort skills to be human in a sea of technology. We need to make others comfortable in our digital environments and we need to continue to expand and develop our skills as we work to integrate technology into our daily lives.

Be Comfortable WITH Technology

We can become completely comfortable living with technology - just ask people in a meeting or in a conference room if anyone’s cell phone is NOT within reach…we don’t leave home without our ‘digital leashes’. We love to video chat with our friends and family, and, while not advised, will even do so while we’re driving not worrying that we’re not looking at the camera or if there is background noise. Yet consider how many of us are still too uncomfortable to turn on the camera during a business meeting. Getting comfortable is definitely part of learning the technology, but then while getting things done. The work still needs to be done no matter what the technology is so the last thing you want your employees and team hung up on which button to push. The tools should enable the work to be wildly successful, not represent the biggest roadblock.  But only with use can teams not only figure out how to use technology, but then integrate it into their daily work.  As when you can collaborate WITH technology, then you will find the true business value of your investment.