“Every employee needs certain digital skills for e-learning to succeed” – But what exactly does this mean? In the article, we clarify the term and give you tips that EVERYONE can participate in digital education.
What does digital competence actually mean?
In our increasingly digitized society, digital competence is one of the most important skills for employees. But what does it mean to be digitally competent?
“Digital competence describes the ability to navigate a digitized world, to learn and work within it.” – Wikipedia
Digital competence is also one of the eight key competencies for lifelong learning. This means it affects every employee!
The digital transformation leads not only to job-specific changes. Many companies expect a fundamental change in the skill requirements of their employees. A study from KOFA (Competence Center for Skilled Worker Security) has examined which competencies gain particular importance in the context of digitization:
IT user knowledge
Independence, planning, and organizational skills
Cooperation and communication skills
Professional and IT expertise
Leadership skills
The results clearly show that handling technical applications is becoming increasingly important, and these are used for many more tasks. Of course, the requirements and the extent of the demanded digital competencies vary depending on the role or task in the company. However, every employee should master the most important basics. After all, they need these skills not only for their work in the company but also for participating in e-learning.
5 tips on how every employee can participate in e-learning
1. Alleviate the fear of “tech newcomers”
Often, it is the older employees who have fewer digital skills. This naturally leads to higher skepticism; moreover, they are familiar with the advantages of multi-day in-person seminars and do not want to miss them. Especially support these employees and explicitly promote skills in handling digital tools and creating digital content. How to convince tech skeptics has been explained in detail in the blog.
2. Check the current knowledge level
Before you start planning your content, you should survey the knowledge level of your employees. This is especially important for cross-departmental e-learning, as the competency differences can vary greatly here. An IT expert will likely have a better understanding of programming languages than a sales employee.
Provide them with appropriate learning materials that match their knowledge gaps. If the knowledge levels differ significantly, adaptive learning is a good solution.
3. Provide every employee with good onboarding
To keep knowledge differences as low as possible from the beginning, you should enable comprehensive onboarding for every employee. It is especially important in e-learning that every employee knows the following points from the start:
What is the goal of the e-learning?
How does the e-learning formally proceed?
How can they seek help with technical questions?
How can they seek help with content questions?
How long does the e-learning take?
On what devices can they do the e-learning?
4. Explain complex content with examples
Explaining extensive or complex content simply is also a challenge in direct conversation, and in e-learning, it does not get easier. Therefore, it is advisable to always explain complex topics using examples.
In some cases, it is even advisable to package the learning content into a story. In the sense of the storytelling method, your story's agent follows a mission or is faced with a problem to find a solution in the end.
5. Use easily accessible technology
The most important tip comes at last: Don’t make it harder than necessary for your employees, and use simple technology for e-learning. Especially when their digital competence is less developed, new software can quickly overwhelm and thus demotivate.
A learning platform like blink.it is the perfect solution for tech beginners or employee groups with varying digital competencies. The straightforward design is intuitive to use, even without a long introduction. This also saves you time as an HR professional. In addition, you can incorporate playful elements like quizzes and short videos to make your e-learning as engaging as possible.
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Digital competence: Take the quick test now!
What is the status of your employees' digital competencies? Be a good role model and also check your skills. After all, you can only help your employees if you are digitally competent yourself.
[Download the quick test for free as PDF]
Looking at the quick test makes it clear that not all employees can be at the same competency level. No problem! With our tips, all employees can participate in e-learning.
Our 5 most important tips for e-learning at a glance:
Alleviate the fear of tech skeptics
Check the current digital knowledge level
Good onboarding for every employee
Explain complex content with examples
Use simple technology for e-learning
Make it as easy as possible for yourself and your employees; after all, they should concentrate on the learning content. To achieve this, good planning and simple technology are crucial. Remember that especially older employees often struggle with complicated software. Use a simple learning platform for your e-learning like blink.it and gather all learning content in one course. This way, you can be sure that every employee can access it and really engages with it. Additionally, you can regularly remind them of your e-learning by sending them an email, for example.
Curious? Then check out the blink.it platform yourself. Book a free demo and get to know blink.it as an admin.
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