How we support universities to bridge companies’ digital skills gap

Digital Skills Global partners with the world’s leading universities to rapidly transform the digital competencies of corporate workforces. Headquartered in Dublin, the company was founded by educator and entrepreneur Paul Dunne, an innovator in the digital space in Ireland since the 1990s.

Digital Skills Global has emerged from the technology and expertise of international digital education pioneer Digital Skills Academy. The company was recognised as an exemplar of rapid transformational digital skills development – including public endorsements by the European Commission and European Parliament.

This expertise has supported online programs in digital skills delivered to working professionals from 33 countries, across six continents. Participants in these programs have come from companies such as Accenture, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Dell EMC, Deloitte, EY, Google, Oracle, Prudential, SAP, Shell, and UBS.

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Their digital technology programmes are focused on supporting corporates in workforce development using a “build” versus “buy” talent strategy. This aims to develop the great digital talent that businesses need from within the quality of their existing workforce. Therefore, the question of how employers can foster a culture of learning and development within their organisations is an important one for Digital Skills Global.

Effectively communicating the alignment of the interests of the employer and the employee is one of the ways Digital Skills Global see this being achieved. In the case of the need for digital skills, this should be relatively straightforward, given that it is a worldwide problem.

Corporations face significant obstacles with developing the digital skillsets needed to compete and thrive in the rapidly expanding global digital economy. Working professionals within corporations have a challenge in acquiring the digital skills to advance their careers and contribute to the future success of their organisations. Their interests are aligned when they have solutions available to them that simultaneously meet each of their respective needs, and where these are shareable solutions. For corporations, these are solutions that meet the need for digital business and leadership skills development without disrupting the work of the organisation. For individual working professionals, these are solutions that meet the need to acquire digital skills while continuing to work.

Corporations need also to ensure that the perception in the organisation is that individuals who make investments of time and effort in learning and development – perhaps also coupled with a personal financial investment – are recognised and rewarded for this. The individual professional in the corporation must feel that their effort will have a tangible and positive impact on their career advancement.

One of the ways that this can be reinforced is by learning and development that leads to recognised credentials. It is hugely motivating for the individual to make their investment – whether time, effort or money – in learning and development that results in a credential awarded by a recognised body, such as a university. For example, Digital Skills Global’s partnership with Boston College, a world-leading university, addresses this motivation with credentials that speak to the highest of quality standards internationally. The decision-makers for learning and development investment in the corporation can also be assured that a credential from a recognised university provides them with an assurance of the quality of the investment they’ve made.

For more, see DigitalSkillsGlobal.com

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