Are you skilling or still hunting?

Are you skilling or still hunting?

Be honest: does your company belong to the elite 5 percent* that already have strong digital leaders on board? Or are you more likely to be among the 95 percent* who are desperately seeking digital talent to help drive digital change?

Welcome to the battle for the best digital talents, who are much sought-after and in short supply. A fact confirmed by the European Commission. In its view, up to 756,000 unfilled jobs could be created in the European ICT sector by the end of 2020.

Without a solid headhunting effort, most companies are left out in the cold, because digital leaders are scarce and not easily enticed away. Thus, it is also true in headhunting that good things take time. Depending on circumstances, an average of 6 to 12 months will pass before a suitable, eagerly awaited digital leader is able to take effect in your company.

But one bird doesn't make a summer - and one external talent doesn't make a change. Comprehensive success only emerges when change is made a top management priority, when digital competence is built up within the management team, when contemporary management concepts are established, and when the learning agility of the workforce is being developed.

Therefore, an initiative must start from the top with senior management. However, you can only credibly push the issue forward if you are digitally skilled yourself. So far, this has been the exception, as responsibility is usually delegated to external service providers or someone responsible for digitization. This procedure easily leaves your own digital talents and potential undetected. 
 

I beg you pardon? The essence of this provocation is: Do you see headhunting/external recruiting as your only option in acquiring digital skills? Or do you already complement this strategy with digital upskilling, a method of developing/enhancing the skills of your own employees?  

For companies that want to remain competitive, it is time to use their own creativity and give top priority to continuing education and retraining of their own employees. Go create the missing skills yourself, as the World Economic Forum estimates that by 2022, more than half (54%) of all employees will require significant retraining. European Commission figures show that around 37% of Europe's workforce does not even have basic digital skills, not to mention the more advanced and specialized skills that businesses need to be successful in using digital technologies.

However, these figures should not scare you off, because digital competences are not witchcraft - but can be learned. When choosing a digital leader, digital skills are not the deciding factor. Much more important are the social and psychological strengths, e.g. the ability to lead virtual teams, to endure uncertainty, to withstand ambivalence and to react quickly and flexibly to unforeseeable changes time and again. 

Upskilling can be a key factor in driving your company's data, digital and technology agenda. At the same time, you are securing the future of your employees. You enable them to become fit for digital change and secure their future income rather than being left out of the digital labour market of the future. 
 

Excellent entrepreneurs reflect on their own creativity. Upskilling initiatives are therefore driven by visionary leaders who have intensively studied the long-term economic and social elements. The route does not begin as a highway, but as a beaten path. It may seem arduous, but it is worthwhile for many reasons:

• Employee retention: Your talents will stay with you if the best jobs are not just given to outsiders. Investments in the development of your own capabilities strengthen self-confidence and are an important sign of trust.
• Company DNA: With your internal talents you also enhance your own company DNA, your profile, your tradition, your history and the internal knowledge beyond all documentation - because the future always needs origin.
• Recruiting: It is also an important selection criterion for external talents whether they can identify further development opportunities themselves within your company.
• Co-creation: Externally recruited leaders are not considered to be the enemy, as long as internal talents are empowered and can also take an active part in digital change.
• Investment: You can attract external talent from the market or use this fee to take an entire team to the next digital level and thus promote the sustainability of your employees.
  
   

Conclusion: strengthen your competencies with and without traditional recruiting efforts.

Doing one without leaving the other - that is the principle. What is the best way to start? We recommend 3 steps:

1. Evaluate: Assessing your innovation culture allows you to understand the status quo and to derive your digital competency needs. You will identify the appropriate personnel strategy and define next steps for action.
2. Empower: Strengthening your digital core competencies by recruiting externally and/or by upskilling and developing your internal talents. 
3. Entrust: Training, coaching and continued further education will help you strengthen the self-confidence of your employees in themselves and in the company. With that newly acquired digital competence, the path is clear for innovation.

(*Global Human Capital Trends 2018)