Workplace Digital Divide

What is the workplace digital divide?

The gap between the organizations that are leaders in technology and infrastructure and those that have failed to capitalize on technology infrastructure.

The digital divide could be for many reasons, but it’s a result of poor economic and social consequences, showing how it aggravates existing discrimination along racial and other social lines. In terms of the digital divide in the workplace, this gap affects employee productivity and motivation, creating a gap between technology leaders and those who are digitally behind.

Why do we need to bridge the gap?

It is important to understand the skill gaps, and why we need to invest in our people, in order to be successful and create a happy workspace.

Bridging the skill gap from within promotes employee retention, at the same time, it ensures that new skills are paired with the organizational knowledge that makes long-term employees so valuable. We can close the skill gap by upskilling and reskilling the workforce, which can be achieved by doing the following:

• Identify the roles and responsibilities, and the areas that need improvement, and identify the skills in demand for that particular role.
• Communicate with your employees why these trainings are important and how it will help them and the business.
• Enroll or conduct these training programs, which are convenient and flexible.
• Creating in-house, mentorship programs, to create support for the employees.

Identifying learning opportunities

Creating learning content, and providing the right tools and courses to your employees can help you in closing the skill gap.  There few things to keep in mind before taking this approach.

• Use of technology in creating content of interest.
• Learning should be engaging and interesting for the learner.
• Personalize it by creating custom learning paths based on areas of learning and improvement.
• Learning should be flexible and adaptable.

Monitor your progress

Measuring the success of the program is as important as creating the learning program, to know its impact and success. Use of analytics to keep track of the insights that can assess the performance and growth of employees, track metrics, and also keep learning programs on track.

Learning is an ongoing process, and because these training programs are so versatile, employees can apply a number of skills and disciplines.  Provide your employees with the tools that are required to do their jobs well.