Using the Apprenticeship Levy to Digitally Upskill

During March I was privileged to work with Seetec Employer Services on an event road show in London, Birmingham and Manchester. The audience were large employers that from April this year will pay an Apprenticeship Levy of 0.5% of their payroll.

I am posting my prompt sheet to share the information I shared regarding the need to use the Levy for Upskilling existing staff to improve productivity in the workforce by giving them digital skills. This is a really huge issue across UK plc, myself and my husband have witnessed this first hand in clients that we have worked with. Ask yourself after you have read this, are you ready for this new world, new working culture?

Here goes…

Good morning, I have spent the past 33 years in technology and it really came a live for me when I became a Business Owner and created the Social Business Network Ecademy, in 1998. We predated LinkedIn by 4 years and had the most amazing community of business people.

My first love in the Digital world was the use of communities and the ability to build ‘tribes’ my second, was Digital Marketing, and now I am fascinated by Digital Productivity and the skills required. The growth in Software as a Service, the decentralisation of IT and the incredibly need to increase the skills of the UK labour Force drives me.

It is thought (by surveys conducted by Government and their friends) that 12.6million adults lack basic digital skills. The digital skills gap is damaging the UK economy to the tune of ￡63billion a year in lost additional revenue and is affecting our productivity and economic competitiveness.

We are below the average of the G7 advanced economies on productivity a quote from ONS. In the Office of National Statistics Productivity Review

Output per hour in the UK was 18 percentage points below the average for the rest of the major G7 advanced economies, the widest productivity gap since comparable estimates began in 1991. On an output per worker basis, UK productivity was 19 percentage points below the average for the rest of the G7

The UK’s “productivity gap” of about 14% is twice as large as the gap for the rest of the G7.

I contacted ONS (Office of National Statistics) to see if they had measured the impact of digital on Productivity, they were incredibly helpful but replied that this was not a study yet. This hugely surprised me

So, while I want to fill you with statistical evidence of this, you will need to believe me through examples and my experience.

My Digital Business Britain Manifesto, supported by BIS in 2011 was the catalyst for the launch of Digital Youth Academy, which I proudly sold to Seetec in 2015. Our impact has been vast and so have our findings.

I campaign to ensure that workers are not excluded from the explosion in digital. Along with working in the Sole trader would as they are a critical part of the economy and increasingly so.

While I do respect the actions of Government and the push affect of this agenda, companies,- especially senior leaders are holding back due to their own skills and understanding and the fear of letting go and changing their IT and Digital Policies - allowing a decentralisation of skills and device usage.

Taking just Social Media as part of the mix, to not allow its use across a company is like stopping someone using a telephone. I know from experience, the only way to do Business Development now is on LinkedIn and Twitter, yet few sales people have the know how or the skills to use it. Social Media is not the domain of marketing, it should be everyone’s responsibility and opportunity.

In a House of Lords debate recently, Nicola Blackwood called for businesses to invest more in better training of digital AT ALL LEVELS” and this is your enormous opportunity with the Apprenticeship Levy.

A study, named in the House of Lords stated that almost 50% of workers were not maximising the potential of new digital technologies and organisations were not utilising skills and talents of their employees. Almost 50% employees are seen as having a digital skills gap.

In a Grovo report The European Commission stated that companies had no choice but to invest in digital skills in order to innovate, connect and retain staff. Without it the competitiveness of the organisation will diminish and the loss of  established companies will be unprecedented. They state that training is critical in todays climate.

I quote “Training has not kept pace with technology and workers, businesses and entire economies are paying the price. Deloitte state that the rapid pace of technology advancement in the workplace is leading to a skills life of only 2.5 years.

So what are these core skills?

We were hired to help a very large company, with 330,000 employees to help them train their vast number of Managing Directors. We were asked to help them gain skills to use Twitter and LinkedIN. 2 hours were put aside for 121 training. To our shock, we were teaching how to use Google, how to use a Browser, how to cut and paste, the training was so basic, and was uniformly required.  Getting to the stage of training what we were hired to achieve took a lot of our time.

The basic Skills now required are around (source Grovo Report )

1.    Working with documents

2.    Project collaboration

3.    Communication

4.    Digital Etiquette

5.    Search and research

6.    Security and privacy (most breaches are at user level)

7.    Attention management – the soft skills to focus on the High priority Tasks in a world of information overload

8.    Platform Flexibility the skills required to use the growing number of devices, operating systems and software platforms that are integral to business performance

So we hear the term Digital Literacy, the ability to critically navigate, evaluate and create information, a huge agenda in schools now, but what about the workforce that you have that missed out on this?

Do they become redundant and you lose their knowledge or do you invest your Levy and gently coach them into the new world?

London alone seeks around 1000 digitally skilled people at any one time. It is estimated that 100,000 are needed a year. The market of skills for you to recruit is tiny. But to your relief, you can train your staff under the Levy.

Only 4 in 10 companies are currently doing something about this skills gap, equipping their staff with new ways of thinking and ways to be more productive. (source Freeformers https://www.impactinternational.com/digital-upskilling )

Empowering your workforce is not an option.

Gone are the days when the workplace was a physical space that employees came to in regular office hours

The connected -instant –access- environment has blurred the lines between the physical office space and were we all actually work.

This workplace has become truly digital, ---- communicating, collaborating, and sharing knowledge and connections across the organisation is now virtual.

I made a decision as a Business Owner some years ago that I could not work with, or for anyone that was not fast and digitally capable, I didn’t have time to wait for him or her, my business could not wait.

I read an article from Mashable that stated that these were the skills a College leaver needs, and it made me wonder how many of their managers would have these skills when they enter the workplace? (source Mashable )

You may think these are irrelevant, but ask yourself, do you really know what is relevant in a market that is disrupted and challenged at every turn by the new companies that enter. Also, do these skills also open up creativity and problem solving and enable better project management and collaboration

Also consider that now 1billion people access the Internet through Apps, not Browers)

These are the 10 College leaver skills needed https://mashable.com/2013/05/06/digital-skills-college/#eTzSG0Hfbuqz

1. Setting Up a Wi-Fi Network

2. Backing Up to the Cloud

3. Basic Photo Editing (Photoshop)

4. Basic Video Editing (Final Cut Pro)

5. Google Drive and Microsoft Office

6. HTML and Basic Coding

7. Setting Up a Website and Domain

8. Converting File Formats

9. Online Banking

10. Branding Yourself

We can all accept that the workplace is changing and this will only speed up, in fact now we hear about Blockchain and the impact that transparent and open technology will have in the Financial and Banking Sectors, and all those that serve them. A new phrase, how many of you have heard this word, let alone understand the impact it will have.

Employees connect and collaborate differently now, this change has accelerated over the past 30 years due to three trends (source – Deloitte ‘The Digital Workplace, Think, share, do”

-      Succession planning and an aging workforce who take their knowledge with them when they retire unless this is addressed

-      Information overload finding the information you really need when you need it

-      The need for speed and a world that is impatient and wants instant communication and results, ensuring all colleagues can work at the same pace and not hold back progress on projects

Meeting the demands of multi-generational workforces is a vast challenge and with the need to cut costs and increase productivity, if not already, this will become the ‘meme’ in all companies.

So what is holding us back from making transformational training decisions?

Is it funding – you can now address this, training budgets have been enforced by Governement through the Levy

Is it fear –overcome the need for control and build trust in employees

Is it the Senior Management holding onto control of IT and not enabling a distributed IT and skills policy?

Is it motivation and the WHY?

We have worked with all of the above barriers and want to support you. One company worked through its HR dept to introduce a culture shift, they created a Twitter #tag and every member of staff (30,000 of them) were allowed a Twitter Handle.

We implemented Reverse Mentoring (created an internal program for young to mentor the older) – building a close and respected relationship between the generations.

as a result of the massive shift in skills and their use of Twitter the CEO no longer uses email to communicate news to staff.

All staff use the #tag to share their news about their successes in their daily life, even the floor cleaner contracted to Tesco, proudly showing their shiny floors.

The company brand has grown so much that they are attracting talent, retaining talent, winning clients and now they have embedded a ‘Digital Culture throughout”

This may be a step too far for many of you (currently)

But maybe you can find your motivation from these thoughts from a Deloitte survey

1.    Talent Attraction and a mobile workforce – 64% of employees would work for less if they could work away from the office

2.    Productivity, Organisations with strong online social networks are 7% more productive

3.    Communication – workers prefer instant communication, esp. Instant messaging over traditional methods such as email.

4.    Employee Engagement – increase in employee retention when a member of staff feels engaged with their employers

There will be barriers, but financing training should not be one of them, hopefully you can see the way forward and will break any of the other ones down.

Thank you