BUS603: Managing People

A key success factor in digital transformation of an organization is a training and learning concept with three areas of focus:

• how an organization bridges its digital skills and confidence gaps
• how an organization encourages people to take responsibility for their own continuous learning
• how an organization challenges and supports its senior people to become digital leaders

Some years ago, learning was focused on training people to fulfill their tasks (job training) and occasional additional skills, and there was little need for most workers to be always learning. Now, when all organizations must cope with the uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of the digital economy, they have to try to become more agile and adaptive. Intelligence and small-scale decision-making must be distributed to the edges of the organization, so that each team and function is free to learn and adapt based on customer and market feedback.

The learning process in organizations wishing to be successful within digital transformation should be changed from a process-centric world of job training to a service-oriented world of continuous learning and improvement in the flow of work. Many organizations developed digital workplace platforms and tools; learning around the digital workplace should help employees to understand how these tools can improve their work, achieve digital skills, and help the organization to have more advantages from its existing technology investments.

Some aspects should characterize the learning in the time of digital transformation:

• The digital workplace needs a learning hub/community to accelerate change and adoption of new ways of working.
• A combination of informal, active, social learning + digital guides and a suitable methodology is a good approach to this.
• Minimum digital fluency is required to work in modern organizations.
• Leadership development programs need to change to avoid the behavior of some senior people becoming the biggest barrier to change.
• In the modern technology-augmented organization, learning will not be a separate activity, but a daily part of work with occasional focused learning on new specialist skills.

Referring to necessary skills of entrepreneurs to work within digital workplaces, the European Union team underlines team working, communication, entrepreneurship and innovation, and intercultural skills as as "necessary to drive creativity and innovation and cope with complexity and uncertainty in a fast-evolving workplace" and new skills for success at macro level, i.e., digital fluency referring to the ability to use digital tools and resources existing in companies to do a specific task at workplace and be successful. Another skill is the ability to deal with a change which significantly increases. Adaptability and cognitive flexibility help people to change their ways when business needs to shift.

It is known that information and data are used more frequently to achieve business goals, to make decisions, and to build strategies. The entrepreneurs should be able to assess and analyze data and information.

The EntreComp framework outlined by the EU Commission, 2016, highlights that entrepreneurship should not be limited to those people setting up businesses but in all aspects of life. "Entrepreneurship is when you act upon opportunities and ideas and transform them into value for others. The value that is created can be financial, cultural, or social".

Entrepreneurship requires innovation, knowledge about industry/market, and adaptability to different business. In order to be prepared for a successful career, it is necessary that students understand what entrepreneurship means and use entrepreneurial skills to achieve career goals.

Entrepreneurship education and training refers to the use of a variety of skills to develop a culture of entrepreneurship aimed at the development of behavior, attitudes, and capacities that create value.

Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education have an important role in social and economic developments.

Addressing a global challenge such as youth employment requires global actions to prepare them for digital workplaces. It is known that young people are natives of the digital realm, relatively few possess the skills needed in the digital economy, and employers around the world are struggling to find skilled professionals equipped with the technical and soft skills they desire. In context of the youth employment crisis and the job opportunities available for people equipped with digital skills, the question of skills training and improvement of entrepreneurship education therefore become central.

Referring to learning methods within entrepreneurship education, Chinnoye and Akinlabi affirm that this is most successful through active learning approaches such as experiential, team-based project, and problem-based approaches.

Learning the concept of global citizenship through global collaboration helps students to work cooperatively with people around the world; this is often necessary for their future jobs.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are very important and numerous in Europe but small, and their resources are constrained. Because, their staffs need to adapt to digital transformation changes and learn new competences and skills relatively quickly; new learning/training opportunities for their staff have to be found, in addition to the daily operations of the company. Most entrepreneurship programs are targeted at new business owners or start-ups. There is, however, less research on the relationship between entrepreneurial skills of employees in existing SMEs, digital transformation, and innovation capacities in this context.

The European ongoing project Reinnovate, with participation of the author, also focuses on encouraging all employees in SMEs to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, increasing the chances of the small firm's survival within digital transformation. Project partners come from five European countries. Within the framework of the project, an intense cooperation with SMEs, research organizations, and representatives of higher education is crucial. The provision of a training program and model accreditation will assist employees in SMEs to find/create the knowledge required to become more competitive, to develop a digital culture of entrepreneurship, and to become more innovative.

Reinnovate uses results of the European project Archimedes and a survey with 150 European SMEs about their existing skills and corresponding training needs suitable also in connection with digital transformation. The methodology of Reinnovate is direct including interviews with guest entrepreneurs, recording videos, counseling, if possible, group discussions, active learning, learning from mistakes, process-oriented teaching, practical-operational teaching methods like starting a business, and role play.

The Reinnovate methodology should help to:

• Take into consideration the most common practices in SMEs which are informal learning and workplace learning.
• Take into consideration effective and preferred practices by employees to keep the employees moral at digital workplaces and extend their employability perspectives.
• Support the interorganizational level of workplace learning, i.e., regardless of life-cycle stages.

Four training modules will be developed and offered to SME staff, each module over the course of a 6 week period; if a learner takes all four modules, they will accumulate credits for a level 7 certificate award.

Module 1 is about how to use workplace-oriented research to identify opportunities for new business, and includes identifying opportunities from national and international perspective regarding digital transformation, social, and cultural problems.

Module 2 has the objective to enable learners to gather and analyze the relevant data to allow them to implement a business opportunity or an innovative idea in connection with digital transformation. The module consists of three units: decision-making, gathering data, and assessing information.

Module 3 helps entrepreneurs to manage their own research project and module 4 to evaluate success and feature opportunities.