Only 50% of Employers Check Their Workers’ Digital Literacy

Just half of employers check whether their workers have digital literacy for their jobs, despite the importance of technology skills to the workplace. Questionmark, the online assessment provider, is encouraging employers to ensure their staff have the right modern skills they need to thrive.

Questionmark has launched a report, “Modern skills for a post-pandemic world”, which shows that staff are struggling to make the most of new digital technologies.

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Workers report they spend 45 minutes a day searching for information between different technology platforms. Teams struggle to collaborate and communicate digitally, despite the advances during lockdowns.

The lack of digital literacy can also undermine the safety of data and systems. Human error contributes to some 95% of cyber breaches.

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John Kleeman, Founder of Questionmark, said: “It doesn’t matter how many times we write ’digital transformation‘ or ’tech adoption‘ in a business plan. If our staff haven’t got the modern skills to make the most of new tools, employers are never going to feel the full productivity benefits. Testing staff’s digital literacy and tech abilities provides real information on strengths and weaknesses across the workforce. Employers can use it to make better decisions on training, recruitment and development.”

By regularly assessing the workforce, employers can:

  • Measure current abilities of workers – leaders must decide how to equip their workforce with the modern skills they need. This is impossible without first understanding strengths and gaps across teams.
  • Reduce wasted training – testing potential participants before they do a training course ensures that only those that need it will take part. The investment is not wasted on those it’s not right for.
  • Measure the effectiveness of training – testing employees during and after training indicates whether the training is working.
  • Check skills of potential employees – by measuring the skills of people during the hiring process, leaders can ensure that they are bringing the right people into their teams.
  • Check skills of new recruits – similarly, measuring the skills of new recruits will enable employers to tailor their individual development programs to help them develop more quickly.

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