Digitization fails due to lack of qualifications

Skillsoft's research, conducted in the U.K., France and Germany, found that retraining and training and development (L&D) are the biggest issues facing workforce development leaders due to changing and increasingly digital work environments.

With an average of 42 percent, the lack of know-how for new requirements in the course of digitization was named as the number one challenge by participants in all countries.

On average, only 22 percent of all respondents said that their organizations were adequately prepared to provide the new skills needed for digital transformation. Around 20 percent of the German study participants agreed.

In the UK, respondents rated the level of preparedness significantly lower. Here, only 14 percent of organizations said they had fully trained staff with appropriate skills. By contrast, 33 percent of organizations in France considered themselves to be fully prepared.

The majority of respondents from all three countries (57 percent Germany, 63 percent UK, 41 percent France) said their organizations need to do more to keep pace with digital developments.

Yet despite the clear vote from all respondents that organizations are not adequately preparing their employees for digital transformation, only about half of companies in each country have increased investment in skills training to keep pace with digital development (Germany 56 percent, UK 56 percent, France 54 percent).