Here are just a few of the top reasons she shared to back up the importance of education in digital transformation:
- Leverage the latest technology
- Improve project efficiency
- Measure skill levels and close gaps
- Retain top talent
- Promote internally
Let’s dive into these ways education can help assist in your digital transformation!
Leverage the latest technology
Digital transformation is all about using new and improved digital tools to improve how work happens at your organization. You want a good education plan in place, so you aren’t afraid to onboard new technologies when it makes sense to use them.
The same goes for your current tools, too.
“If you want to operate at the cutting edge of where we’re going in the industry, making sure you’re getting the most out of your tools is crucial,” Wachendorf shared in her presentation. It’s not enough to own a subscription to the best software programs on the market if your teams aren’t leveraging them to their full potential.
Educating every employee on how to make the most of the tools they’re using every day — and learn how to use new ones — is one of the things Pinnacle Series is designed to do!
Improve project efficiency
One of the rational outcomes of improving your team’s training is a more efficient workday for everyone at the organization and faster deliverables.
“Increasing efficiency and reducing rework is priority one,” Wachendorf said. “Users are dealing with competing priorities for their time, which can infringe on how projects are being delivered.”
Use an e-learning system like Pinnacle Series to keep your staff updated on company best practices and offer on-demand solutions to their problems with our searchable video training.
Measure skill levels and close gaps
If you don’t understand where your staff’s current skills are and where there’s room for improvement, you won’t be able to accurately plan your digital transformation initiatives.
“Understanding where your skill levels are today is going to help you to develop a strategic approach to how you train your users,” Wachdendorf said.
“Once you have that understanding of where your users are today, in relation to where you would like them to be, the question becomes, how do you help close those gaps? And the first piece is going to be closing those gaps through a blended educational opportunity,” she explained.
Blended refers to learning that appeals to various learning styles. For instance, you can have a mix of:
- Hands-on, instructor-led training
- E-learning
- Webinars
- Events
“A blended experience allows them to learn in a way that makes sense, and then reaffirm that information through a variety of different learning experiences,” Wachendorf explained. “Personalizing their learning will also increase the retention of that knowledge as well as improve the engagement because users are not spending time learning on things they already know and understand.”
Pinnacle Series allows you to automatically handle this process. Our built-in assessments let you identify skills gaps and generate custom learning plans for each individual.
Retain top talent
Hiring and training new employees again and again is so much more costly than keeping the ones you have. That’s especially the case in the current labor market.
How does that connect to education?
“As you think about your team members across your organization, about 93% of millennials believe that skill development and education is crucial to their career path and are expecting their employers to provide that to them. Across your teams, this is a wide swath of team members that are expecting education as a part of their career growth,” Wachendorf said.
While employers may look at the upfront cost of training and balk at expanding their employee development programs, it does pay off.
“It’s all about where organizations want to pay,” she explained. “Do you want to pay for training upfront to support and upskill your users, keeping them and growing your team’s talent? Or are you willing to pay for that on the back end, in the loss of talent, the loss of project work, the loss of productivity, and potentially the loss of clients?”
Ultimately, investing in your employees is a win-win for both parties. They get to grow their skills, and you get to enjoy more developed talent and promote from within.
“The most valuable thing I want you to take away is that foundationally, education is key to enabling all of these positive outcomes,” Wachendorf said.
And Pinnacle Series can help you achieve all of them! To talk with our team about the importance of education in digital transformation at your company and learn how Pinnacle Series can fit into your plan, get in touch for a demo or free trial today.
If you’re already a Pinnacle Series customer, you can log in now to start taking advantage of these digital transformation-boosting features.
