Digital skills are #1 in-demand by businesses. Digital marketing is the most common skill request in marketing roles.

This will only continue to increase in importance.

  • Digital spending is growing
  • Digital is over 50% of marketing budgets
  • People spend more and more time on digital
  • Most marketers don’t have digital skills
  • Marketers didn’t “grow up” with digital

All of this points towards the big challenge that businesses have. They have to upskill their organization to succeed in digital.

To keep pace with change, businesses are undergoing digital transformation and upskilling their teams and employees. We’ve worked with thousands of businesses to upskill their teams, and these are the top tips that will lead to successful upskilling.

  1. Set the priority from the top

    Leadership should embrace digital and clearly articulate that it is a priority. Within a business, employees look to leaders to help them prioritize. As digital takes hold on an organization, skill development should be prioritized to keep pace.

    This needs to come from the top.

  2. Invest in skill development

    Invest in developing the skills of your team. This means providing them options for online digital training, live or in-person training, and other opportunities.

    Show them that you are investing in them because it is important.

  3. Recognize and reward

    Create formal and informal reward and recognition opportunities internally. This brings attention to those doing a great job. It shows commitment. It drives home the importance.

  4. Create more opportunities

    Find more opportunities for your organization to upskill the most eager employees. Level-set training is a strong start, but also provide opportunities for those who want to advance further.

    Give them advanced training. Mastery workshops. Special learning opportunities. Support your most eager employees as much as possible.

  5. Set clear expectations

    Set expectations around the digital skills you believe employees need. Let them know what you expect them to do in their jobs. Map these to the necessary skills.

    Set expectations so that everyone knows that you are serious about digital.

Check out our top tips for upskilling infographic:

5 tips to grow the digital skills of your organization infographic