Using Data to Rethink your Business Model
February 10, 2021
To digitise or not to digitise?
March 30, 2021
As the world continues to face more and more disruption, employee skills and capability has never been more important. People will need to have the right skills in place, in order for them to understand what this disruption means, identify opportunities and turn those opportunities into value. According to StatsSA (2020), “43% of business leaders believe their workforce is unable to meet business demands”. The increasing need for organisations to continuously be innovative, keep abreast of new technologies and collaborate with the innovation ecosystem is going to require equally continuous knowledge flowing into your organisations.
Reskilling has of late become a buzzword, but where does one start? Understanding the skills of your workforce and learning more about your new operating or business models to explain the skills required for the future, will help you understand the gaps in your organisation. The good thing is that once you know the gaps, there are various new learning approaches to help you close the gap.
How people learn will never be the same again, so it is important to identify ways of learning in the new.
“43% of business leaders believe their workforce is unable to meet business demands”
Why is Reskilling and Upskilling Important
......“The world is moving into a situation of blended learning be it in academia or even in the workplace environment"
With businesses moving towards a more technology-driven world, many employees are lacking the skills needed to make use of the digital offerings underpinned by emerging technologies. It is therefore very important that organisations reskill their employees so as to expand employee skillsets and create significant competitive advantage. The importance of reskilling has taken increasing precedence due to the current pandemic, as many companies are forced to adapt to new ways of working. ‘Reskilling’ or ‘upskilling’ is therefore vital to organisations because not only is it less expensive when compared to employee turnover, but it also helps organisations create a well-rounded, cross-trained workforce and increases effectiveness. Lauren du Preez HR Executive at BCX explains that she has seen an increase in online learning, as many internationally recognised programmes become available to more people in different locations. This is an opportunity for people to embrace digital transformation. Waseem Carrim Chief Executive Officer of National Youth Development Agency supports this statement, “The world is moving into a situation of blended learning be it in academia or even in the workplace environment, a lot of young people learn better with on-the-job training”. He then goes on to state that blended learning will allow educational institutions and organisations to collect more information on how people learn, allowing those institutions to be able to adjust their teaching strategies to best suit individuals’ needs and assist those who may have learning disabilities. We are already seeing blended learning in action, as many institutions now are incorporating traditional classroom learning and online learning as a way in which to teach their employees, where people are not going to work every day, and some are even working from home full-time. This type of learning also has several benefits for organisations because its cost-effective in that employees don’t have to take time off work for constant training, while providing them with access to content from anywhere, anytime and on any device (as some courses are even data-free).
Is digital learning the way to go?
Learning on its own has many benefits for organisations. Firstly, it improves retention, meaning that employees are constantly being trained and developed in the organisation. Secondly, learning boosts morale as employees who have training, and development opportunities are happier because they can see their path to career advancement.
While it is important that companies look to invest in learning programmes, digital learning techniques, however, are not without challenges. Access is a major issue; “The pandemic has highlighted this massive digital divide; the high costs of data exacerbate the digital divide. 80% of households own a television, however only 20% of households have access to internet. Although government have released broadband programmes, still more work needs to be done” Waseem explains. It is not all doom and gloom, “How can we avoid leaving those digitally divided behind? We need to start developing VR experiences for devices that people already have, such as a smart phone… about 22 million in South Africa use a smart phone and that accounts for a third of the country’s population” Jean Pierre Meyer, Sales and Marketing Director at VR Dynamics adds.
The Benefits of Learning in the new
du Preez states that learning in the new or reskilling in our current time requires managers as well as employees to think differently about learning, adding that organisations need to look at what’s becoming more current and trendy in this day and age (for example, virtual on-the-job training) and use that in the process of learning, emphasising that the way in which learning is done by organisations today needs to change and the focus needs to be more on how we can use technology to conduct training programmes.
COOi Studios has also built an offering of learning curriculums for emerging technologies, Artificial Intelligence, 3D Printing, Internet of Things, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. We deliver learning in a reimagined manner, where we do not follow traditional methods of learning. We blend different types of learning methods to give learners an engaging and effective learning experience; from didactics, which is formal learning we use this sparingly in the session, when we are trying to explain complex topics, to discovery, which is more informal learning where learners find things out on their own. We insist that our learners participate in experiential learning, and lastly discourse, where learners gain knowledge from interacting with others in our sessions in the form of presentations or adjudicating each other’s work.
Learning in the new must include digital learning as a way in which to empower employees and improve organisational effectiveness as the era we live in now requires employees to have some knowledge on technology and how to use to improve their skills and therefore improve the way in which they conduct business. COOi Studios encourages the use of new ways of learning as a means to not only empower employees but to also help organisations be able to keep up with the current changes in the world we live in. Learning in the new will not only improve the way in which business is done but it will also change people’s perspectives on learning and introduce new ways of learning, which will be useful to organisations and employees alike.
