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Exercise: Employees’ digital potential.
Purpose: Understand the difference between skills and competence and how important it is for companies to create a working environment that takes advantage of employees skills.
Duration: 30-60 minutes.
To keep in mind: The exercise is best suited in smaller groups of 5-10 people so that a good discussion can be held in the group around what the result means and how the company can act on the outcome.
Content provider: DigJourney based on research by Bertil Rolf.
The purpose of the exercise is both to understand that there is a difference between skills and competence, and that it is of essence to create a work environment that takes advantage of the employees skills. The goal is to get an idea of how much of the employee’s digital maturity that is used at work and how much is wasted, for example, through an overly strict IT policy or a culture that limits the possibilities to utilize the knowledge at hand.
There is a difference between skills and competence
1. Begin with an interactive theory session based on the question, what is competence? Let group participants discuss two and two. Invite the participants to present their discussions to the group and discuss.
2. Explain the concept of competence.
A person is competent when she is skillful and acts in an environment that takes advantage of these skills. Explain for the group that individuals have different digital maturity as an individual at home and as a professional at work. In the book, pages 64-65, there is a reading for deepening the reasoning.
3. Divide the group into smaller groups. Then, let them discuss how digitally mature everyone in the group feel outside work. For example, what tools and technology do they use, at home or in other private environments? Why do they use them? When did it start? How are they used? Summarize it on post-its and put them on a wall to make a word cloud.
4. Ask participants to rate their digital maturity as a private individual. The scale is 1-10, where 10 is extremely digital mature, 1 not at all digitally mature. The important thing here is not to get an exact number instead having a reference that can be compared to bullet 6. Visualize the scale so that participants different ratings are visible to everyone. Note that it may be a good idea to make the ratings anonymous.
5. The next task concerns each person in his or her occupation. Discuss everyone’s digital maturity in smaller groups. For example, what tools and technology are used at work? Why are they used? When did it start? How are they used? Summarize it on post-its and put them on a wall to make a word cloud.
6. Ask participants to rate their digital maturity at work on a scale 1-10. Visualize the ratings together with the previous ratings from bullet 4.
7. Now you have come across how digital maturity is distributed among the participants, at home and at work. You can visually see the differences and you have post-it notes describing them. Wrap up the exercise by having a theory discussion in three parts.
Theory of employees’ digital potential
The difference between the digital maturity as a private individual and as a professional constitutes the untapped digital potential that each employee has.
Reflection on differences and similarities
There are four different results to reflect on.
At high scores of digital maturity at home but low at work, it is likely that it is the working environment that holds back the employees. In this case, the employees have a potential that could be better utilized through changes in the work environment. Discuss:
At low scores on both parts, it is likely that training will be needed to increase the employees’ digital knowledge level. Discuss what kind of knowledge development would be appropriate.
At high scores on both parts, it means you should celebrate. This is truly a blessing!
At high scores of digital maturity at work and low scores at home, it might be useful to think about if you could stimulate personal digital maturity. Otherwise it might be a risk of lagging behind going forward.
Summarize the exercise
