Digital Skills Readiness: How To Build Digital-Ready Workforces For India Inc.

The future is digital-first and the foundation for this is already being built with businesses rapidly undergoing digital transformation. As businesses move towards being partially or fully digital, there is a massive demand for digitally skilled workforces; but the supply doesn’t equally match the requirement everywhere.

Salesforce’s 2022 Global Digital Skills Index gives an overview of the digital skills readiness of workers from 19 countries and the most sought-after roles. According to the Index, with inputs from over 23,000 current and prospective employees, India scores the highest – 63 out of 100 – on digital readiness.

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Continuously training the workforce will help build “intelligent enterprises” that are prepared for any disruption in India. As Arundhati Bhattacharya, CEO & Chairperson of Salesforce India says, “India is rapidly developing to become a global powerhouse for talent with the potential to lead this global transition to an all-new digital economy”.

Closing the gaps between emerging digital-first roles and the availability of digitally skilled workforces can help turn this possibility into a reality. Here’s what businesses can do in this regard:

• Partner with educational institutes to prep talent early on: India’s overall working population is estimated to be growing by 12 million people every year. Businesses can run skilling and counselling drives with educational institutes across India to equip students with relevant digital skills. This improves access to better opportunities for students and talent for businesses.
• Create new roles that are in line with contemporary digital skills: Provide new jobs that allow people to apply their talent and digital skills at work. According to IDC, the Salesforce Economy alone in India will provide over 548,400 new direct jobs between 2019 and 2024. Salesforce is also driving the growth for its partner ecosystem in India, which will make $6.55 for every $1 Salesforce makes locally by 2026.From 2020 to 2026, Salesforce customers will add about $66.4 billion in new revenue to the local economy through the use of its cloud computing services.
• Connect employees with the right people and projects to foster digital skills: Employees perform the best when they do what they love. Help your employees network with industry experts from whom they can get guidance and learn the digital skills relevant to their dream jobs. Also, allow employees to work on projects that help them learn new skills and improve the acquired digital skills of their interest.

• Incentivise digital skilling: Most young workers are always looking to acquire new skill sets that improve their employability. Encourage people to proactively upskill and reskill by partnering with ed-tech platforms and sponsor certifications for courses they can complete and excel at.
• Provide tailor-made skilling programmes: Business processes and modes of working are continuously evolving, aided by different technologies. Training or skilling of professionals in any field is most fruitful when it is in sync with their specific roles and the technologies involved. Businesses should promote training programmes that focus on the top digital skills in demand.

• Allow cross-training: Beyond their roles and related technologies, allow employees to train for cross-functional activities involving the use of in-demand technologies that complement their primary roles and enhance their value.
• Enable anytime, anywhere learning: Learning is not limited to classrooms and workshops. Give employees the freedom to access knowledge and training on any device at their convenience.
• Adopt a sandbox approach to let people acquire digital skills on their own: Give employees the opportunity to understand and learn to use technology on their own. Give them some time to play around and figure out how a particular tech solution works before implementing it. This allows them to define their learning trajectory and understand the technology’s benefits on their own.

Continual skilling and investment are imperative to improving India’s digital readiness

The emphasis on digital readiness will aid the expansion of new-age businesses, as India eyes building a $1-trillion digital economy in the next five years. Training and skilling will play a big role in assimilating more talent into this economy.

Salesforce’s free online learning platform, Trailhead, enables anyone to learn skills and get globally recognised certifications to score interesting, well-paying jobs in the Salesforce ecosystem. It has enabled almost 3.5 million people worldwide to learn old and new in-demand skills important for the future of work.