It’s clear that the ability to adapt will be crucial to workers as we move into a work environment characterized more and more by its rapid changes. In this article, Khadim Batti, co-founder and CEO, Whatfix, discusses important skills employees need to navigate this environment.

The uncertainty of the past several years has made at least one thing clear: the world is changing quickly, and many, if not most, of the changes we initially apprehended as temporary are, in fact, permanent features of the new landscape. These changes aren’t limited to the proliferation of remote work. The pandemic accelerated digital transformation trends as organizations around the world suddenly found themselves in a position where things like cloud computing, remote data access (and the relevant security), online collaboration, and more were no longer tactical objectives but immediate imperatives.

Naturally, technology implementations are not only about the technology itself. Fundamentally, technology tools are only good if workers can use them efficiently. And while organizations press on at a more rapid pace than ever with regard to digital transformation efforts, there’s still a skills gap. According to the World Economic Forum, 50% of employees in enterprises will need to be reskilled by 2025. This intersects with a trend we’re familiar with, which is the tendency for workers to change jobs more frequently than ever before. The question then emerges: what are the most valuable skills workers can build for digital transformation?

Skills Employees Must Develop

The first is adaptability. Some may encounter this as a somewhat formless attribute, an “intangible” that everyone values but struggle to define or identify. However, adaptability is a skill developed and strengthened through a combination of practice, preparedness and structural support. For enterprise tech employees, this means putting yourself in the best possible position to upskill as organizations themselves change, and therefore the work and how it’s done as well. In concrete terms, this means getting familiar with software applications generally, of course, with special attention to their particular job function. But categories of importance will undoubtedly include workplace collaboration applications, customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, enterprise resource management (ERP) platforms, accounting software, and more.

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Of course, it can be difficult to gain exposure to software that your organization doesn’t have or which is outside your strict job function. Employees interested in upskilling can, in these cases, take advantage of learning sessions and webinars hosted by leading vendors in different categories. Online tutorials, demos, and walkthroughs are readily accessible through both third parties and vendors themselves. 

Gaining exposure to software development, even in terms of basic literacy, can be tremendously helpful as well. It builds the foundational vocabulary and patterns of thinking associated with software tools, an invaluable resource as we progress into a future where more and more of our business activities are mediated by software. Moreover, open-source communities can be a terrific place to find communities of folks who can help with specific knowledge, in addition to the powerful open-source tools themselves. 

Employers Should Contribute

However, the onus cannot exclusively be on the workers themselves. Organizations must build structures that will allow employees to thrive using the tools at their disposal. A highly-trained workforce is what’s required, not a self-trained workforce. Individuals can build up proficiencies in specific platforms and practices and even become experts. But the pace of change is such that organizations that don’t actively facilitate workers’ upskilling will be leaving productivity on the table. This is where it becomes essential to confront the adoption of software tools generally as a crucial element of the business strategy.

As we discussed before, tools are only good if people can use them efficiently. This becomes especially important when we investigate questions of scale – the multiplied effects of ineffective software adoption can be extremely costly in terms of lost productivity and unrealized gains. Executives appreciate the importance of this dynamic. A recent surveyOpens a new window of IT executives from the Everest Group revealed that 72% of respondents had already invested in a digital adoption platform (DAP) to help support their workforces in using essential new technologies. 

At a time characterized primarily by uncertainty, the best thing we can do as individuals and as organizations is to put ourselves in a position to adapt. We can’t anticipate the exact changes or precise outcomes that will impact the ways we live and work, but we do know they are coming. It’s also clear that software is a fundamental tool to confront a great deal of these changes in how we work. So while employees would be well-served to develop software proficiency across different tools, organizations must also implement the structures that enable people to succeed, that help them confront the rapid (and accelerating) pace of change.

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