By Viviana Henao for staffingamericalatina

A recent article in the Diario Gestión titled “Digital Transformation Does Not Progress in Peru Due to Lack of Capable People to Execute It” raises alarms and shows that according to the “2021 Digital Transformation and Report Survey” conducted by PDA, the University of Piura School of Management, and RTM Consultancy, there are few companies in ongoing digital transformation processes and many more that have yet to start. The companies that are undergoing the process are facing significant challenges for success. The key challenges that mark the way to the solution are: resistance to change at 58% in companies with a high level of ongoing transformation processes; a lack of human resources prepared to execute it in companies with a medium level of digital transformation processes at 50%; and a lack of digital transformation strategies in companies with low levels of digital transformation processes at 53%.

The positive aspect of these results is that it gives us a clearer idea of where we need to strengthen and support companies to improve their digital transformation levels. Let’s get to work! We will begin by putting the necessary skills that the workforce needs to have more efficient transformation processes at the center of the conversation. To do this, we will take into account one of the problems mentioned by IBM in its 2018 guide, “The Enterprise Guide to Closing the Skills Gap,” which states that one of the main challenges to overcome in digital transformation is the gap between the speed at which the necessary skills and competencies for digital transformation change and the time it takes to train these skills in employees. Having transformation processes does not mean that we need more time to acquire these skills (since there is no time), but that we need specific and effective training strategies in soft skills and digital competencies that are the basis for constant learning and that deliver useful outcomes for the transformation process.

Next, I will share some of the activities that are being considered positive among companies with high digital transformation indices: including in our training plans cultural change workshops, innovation workshops that allow us to structure digital transformation projects, customer and consumer understanding workshops, and workshops on the use of agile methodologies in day-to-day activities.

Training in the 10 soft skills or psychosocial skills that must be worked on to achieve cultural change, positive interactions, and significant progress for our employees’ talent:

Self-awareness:

1. Empathy
2. Assertive communication
3. Interpersonal relationships
4. Decision making
5. Problem solving and conflict management
6. Creative thinking
7. Critical thinking
8. Emotion management
9. Stress and tension management

To conclude, according to IBM in their guide, they provide 3 topics to develop to promote constant learning among employees by counting on their active and committed participation: Make it personal, Promote transparency, and Look inside and outside.

“Make it personal”

Making it personal means getting your employee to care about training, taking it out of the purely professional environment and making it part of their personal development. This can be achieved with 3 topics: seduce, motivate and sustain.

Seducing your employees by personalizing the training content available, with skills that focus on their role development, is more effective. Motivating means creating spaces during work hours to talk and share what has been learned on digital platforms. This will reduce pressure to comply with hours and hours of mandatory learning and open up space for recognition and strengthening the organizational culture.

And to sustain each of the digital transformation skills, values that are permanently lived in both digital and physical work environments must be created, which demands having cultural protocols and including strategies that remind us of this on a daily basis.

“Promote transparency”

Being transparent means sharing the company’s mission or goal with our employees and including them in the journey. What is the digital transformation objective of the company? We must approach the conversation from how their human and professional evolution contributes to the achievement of the mission. It is important to communicate which skills are necessary and demanded by the market in the digital transformation processes and motivate them (again) with all the possibilities that these skills open up. Finally, following the previous motivation, recognition becomes important. We must reward achievements, recognize effort and symbolize the success of learning and the implementation of skills, making it the cherry on top.

“Look inside and outside”

As we have seen, for the digital transformation process it is necessary to have new knowledge and different perspectives to innovate. That’s why it is important to get out of our comfort zone and interact with other people and areas. “Looking inward”: What about a table made up of leaders from different areas and teams to address a specific business challenge? Now “looking outward”, what if we open the doors to external agents to strengthen and contribute to our teams? What about a hackathon? Consolidating a business ecosystem where cooperation and collaboration are values that will increase trust and talent, which in turn will allow for more efficient digital transformation processes in terms of innovation, time, and money.

Are we ready to move forward and explore new paths?