Training for the skills of the future

Digital skills aren’t an option, they’re a career imperative, and digital competence is a non-negotiable, it's the new currency of the modern workforce.

Digital skills are the most sought out skills of the 21^st century and there’s no sign that demand is slowing down. In fact, the World Economic Forum has predicted that 50% of all employees will need training or retraining in digital skills in 2025.

A digitally-enabled workforce is more innovative, efficient, collaborative, and motivated. Every organisation, whether public or private, is chasing after similar skills, which is making the market for talent fiercer. Without enough supply, organisations are looking internally to fill digital skill gaps and looking for effective, value-for-money methods to create a digital workforce of the future. Increasingly, as digital technology is advancing so rapidly, so is the useability of the tools themselves, making it accessible to more and more people. Digital skills aren’t the domain of the nerds, as stereotypes suggest, they’re rather something that can be, and needs to be, embraced by all. 

Nurturing data literate (and data illiterate) staff to bridge the skills gap can help tackle from the very basic to the most complex organisational challenges. With a talented and skilled workforce, the most cost-effective way of meeting the changing and evolving organisational needs can be as simple as training and upskilling existing staff.

To experience the outcomes and benefits of a workforce that has acquired new skills, you need a clear strategy for training and upskilling in place, one that nurtures a continuous improvement culture and that is measured for success and ROI. Having the foundations for this will empower the team and develop the capacity skills needed to thrive in a data-driven era. Learning in a vacuum doesn’t work. We’ve all had training in technologies or skills that were ultimately never used, so it’s important to align the priorities and training to business needs. 

Bridging the skills gap in health and care in Wales

We’ve developed an award-winning learning programme for analysts that demonstrably improved the skills, output, motivation, and productivity of employees. It’s focused on ‘practical’ and ‘real world’ skills that people need to be effective in their roles. What’s more is, there are specific and tailored learning paths to fit your organisation’s needs whether it be for data scientists, analysts, engineers, or data literate professionals.

• 90%+ of analysts recommended the programme we run
• 90%+ improved their skills
• 90% developed practical solutions applicable in their local business area

Please email us if you’d like to find out more. 

We focus on three key areas:

1. We change culture and employee mindset

Often analysts get trapped in a cycle of producing ‘reactive’, ‘process-driven’ outputs based on organisational requirements. However, this often is the result of a lack of challenge, individual familiarity, and short-term priorities. All our training programmes are based on our 10-point competency framework which is designed to shift employee (and organisational) culture and mindset toward learning. We focus on developing habits and routines that enable employees to break out the cycle of routine and challenge themselves on improving.

2. Applied and Immersive learning

Typical training is often unengaging and impractical, failing to leave a mark on participants as it’s focused on theory rather than application, and often outdated by the time it’s delivered. We commit to instead providing a memorable and immersive experience with practical training sessions – things you can and will do on your own organisation’s environment and data. It’s interactive using multiple methods of engaging to ensure learning embeds from group workshops, to self-study, to video content, to presenting to organisational leaders. Every element is designed to make learning ‘stick’ and make it leave a learning legacy.

3. Learning legacy

Skills fade and people lose knowledge based on the amount they apply as well as their interests. Typically, training programmes have poor cost-to-benefit ratios and often deteriorate in quality over time if things remain the same. Our approach ensures that, on our programme, every person not only learns new skills, but leaves the programme having actually changed their organisation for the better. This way, they apply their learning and leave a lasting impression on their skills and the organisation. Participants develop and hone in their skills on a guided hackathon which involves their organisation’s leadership, use case owners, as well as real stakeholders who assess outputs and provide critical feedback to help participants grow.