All You Need to Know About Digital Dexterity and Its Importance

Living in 2020 has taught us several things—how to effectively hold virtual conferences, how to work from home and how to upgrade ourselves digitally. In these times, digital dexterity is present in everything—right from checking out your favourite pizza on the delivery application, weighing its benefits on a health website and checking YouTube for easy homemade recipes.

Digital dexterity seems to be an important benchmark for organisations, which includes the use of modern technology by employers and employees alike. While some workplaces enjoy experimenting with different technologies, their competitors might take weeks or months to adapt – leading to major business losses. Thus, being digitally dextrous can make all the difference in taking the organisation through these uncertain times.

In this article, we shall learn about digital dexterity meaning and how employers can introduce digital dexterity to their workplace that encourages employee engagement while maintaining human-centric and tech-centric considerations. Employees are resistant to change only when they are unclear about its benefits, but here is where you can motivate them to enhance their critical competence and skillset. So, this is what you should know about digital dexterity.

What is digital dexterity?

Digital dexterity is defined as the competence of employees to acclimatise to existing and brand new technology to accomplish certain business targets and outcomes. Employees must be encouraged to embrace digital knowledge that shall influence the business on an individual, team and organisational aspects. Here, we aren’t just talking about improving skills but predicting an entire attitude change. Thus, you would look forward to working with a progressive and future-oriented team combined with flexible mindsets and beliefs to deliver valuable results. Those with superior dexterity skills are happier to experiment with different digital tools, technology and initiatives.

With the advent of digital dexterity, organisations can work with shifting industry needs, customer expectations, business strategies, talent processing and adjusting workflow to acclimate new software. Combined with a long-term goal, flexibly strategised procedures and a positive disposition to learn from mistakes are helpful in digital dexterity at a workplace. Therefore, digital dexterity can transform cultural and hierarchical systems in a swift, collaborative and efficient manner.

What are the benefits of digital dexterity?

Digital dexterity has developed tremendously in the last few years, which means that advanced technology will soon be commonplace in most modern workplaces. Employees now work on digital platforms, requiring them to learn about different tools. Business strategies work best with digital skills to optimise operations and procedures for enhanced customer experience.

The advantages of digital dexterity are as follows:

• Remote working: In the times of the pandemic, digital dexterity is a boon to ensure that employees can complete their targets in the safety and comfort of their homes using modern technology.
• Higher efficiency: Employees can work with better digital opportunities to improve efficiency in their task and department.
• Higher autonomy: Team members can work at their own pace and perform better on projects with shifting targets using digital tools.
• More flexibility: Employees are interested in experimenting with job descriptions and responsibilities as they adapt to the digital transformation.
• Support the organisation: As team members understand the long-term goals of the company, they can include digital technology to support the department.

What are the prerequisites of a digitally dexterous workplace?

As mentioned above, digital dexterity isn’t simply about upskilling yourself and your team members; rather, it is about bringing a transformation in thinking and attitude. Nevertheless, these are the prerequisites to build a digitally strong workplace:

• Willingness and ambition to experiment
  Open-minded employees are ready to experiment with changes in the workplace; however, it can be difficult to convince senior employees for various reasons. This is where human resources and leadership come in to ensure open and clear communication about the benefits of digital dexterity in terms of employee career growth and business development goals.
• Agile business strategies
  Agile businesses can strategise policies and procedures, and adapt to the external market condition. Due to their higher organisational, strategising and working skills, they don’t have to struggle with lengthy bureaucratic processes. Instead, they can focus on bigger opportunities. For this, one needs to recognise and integrate relevant technology into your workflow.
• Technical aptitude
  Technical knowledge is undoubtedly essential, and deserving employees can learn to work with digital tools, which helps in the age of cloud-based applications and other on-site IT platforms. They can further update their tools to use innovative features and other capabilities, which can be part of the onboarding and training process as well.

What should you do to ensure digital dexterity?

Though it is easy to add ‘digital dexterity’ to your agenda for the coming months, it is easier said than done. Here is how you break down this long-term goal into easily-consumable tasks:

• Identify the end-goal
  Digital experts can analyse current and future technology and market trends. Identify the tools that your organisation would require and plan how they would impact its business practices and outcomes. Assess how employees can be prepared for digitisation and the new skills they would require.
• Incorporate several skills
  Apart from hardcore skills, employees need to be equally proficient in psychology, communication and technology. Thus, HR teams can check for skill gaps, and empower staff to develop and maintain their digital skills. Digital-savvy people are willing to take risks, collaborate, innovate and learn, which would enhance your work culture in policies, incentives, management and budgets.
• Assist them in developing their digital skills
  At the beginning of a digital transformation, employees tend to get overwhelmed with IT upgrades and so on. Group discussions and surveys can help business leaders determine what is working or not working for their employees in achieving their goals. Furthermore, launch parties, internal forums, welcome videos and emailers can explain the need for a particular software and how to use it efficiently. Even after the team gets accustomed to the system, emphasise on continuous learning and leadership. Discuss digital technology options and tools for guaranteed business growth, changed mindsets, modified workflows and tech-friendly workplaces.

As an employer, your goal is to empower your team using emerging technology for their careers and your goals. If you invest in their future, they will invest in the success of your company as well.