Workforce Learning and Development in the Digital Era

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Literature Review
Methodology
Analysis
Discussion
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Technological changes modify the supply and demand in the labor market, as well as organizational and substantive foundations of work. As a result, a new model of labor and employment, called Work 4.0, is spreading (Schroeder, Greef, & Schreiter, 2017). These changes are carried out in the digital space; it contains new opportunities, but, at the same time, risks both for the economy and for employees.

With the coming of the digital age, the skills needed to work have fundamentally changed, leading to the transformation of management methods both in business and in the public sphere. On the modern labor market, two key trends are noticeable – digitalization and cross-platform nature.

They relate to many professions, including public service. Considering that the UAE is among the best digital economies in the world, the digital work skills of federal employees are extremely important for this country (McKinsey, 2016). One of the most important tasks facing the UAE in the field of developing the potential of the workforce to work in the public sphere is the restructuring of the training and development of specialists, as well as the creation of a practice-oriented educational environment for the permanent improvement of skills and development of employees in the corporate environment.

Literature Review

Having studied the main approaches that determine the requirements for personnel in the digital economy, it can be argued that, despite the dominance of digital base and the need for the formation and development of core solid competencies of personnel (in such areas of cross-cutting digital technologies as neurotechnology and artificial intelligence; distributed registry systems, virtual and augmented technologies, etc.), great attention is paid to the development of employees’ soft skills (the ability to learn quickly, a high degree of adaptation to the new, cognitive flexibility, teamwork, emotional competence, etc.) (Shermon, 2017).

In its most general form, for successful employment, professional, communicative, informational, and digital types of competencies are needed. “Work 4.0” assumes that the fulfillment of professional duties is carried out using the specified competencies in a high-tech environment. The information space is a level of social relations of a new quality: it is not only about storing, processing, and exchanging information but also about new methods and types of interactions (Johansson, Abrahamsson, Bergvall-Kåreborn, & Fältholm, 2017). Thus, the production space is expanding, in which new collaborations and exchanges arise, which are different from Fordist enterprises and their organizational principles.

The development of digital competencies is especially critical for civil servants, especially in connection with the development of new public management, which involves the application of management methods borrowed from the private sector (Clarke, Lindquist, & Roy, 2017). According to analysts, there is a growing demand for non-standard analytical skills related to creativity, problem solving, communication, teamwork, and entrepreneurship ‑ all the skills that help employees stay effective in the face of change (Colbert, Yee, & George, 2016).

In all sectors, about two-thirds of respondents intend to invest in retraining employees as part of their change management and future workforce strategy (Prifti, Knigge, Kienegger, & Krcmar, 2017). In general, contrary to expectations, social skills (persuasion, emotional intelligence, and training of others) will be more in demand in all sectors than narrow technical skills, for example, programming or operation and control of equipment.

In essence, technical skills will need to be complemented by strong social skills. However, in literature, as a rule, insufficient attention is paid to the issues of appropriate training and development of employees for successful work in the conditions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and skills themselves are often considered in a “patchwork” manner. This determines the feasibility of building a systematic model of employee training and development in order to form an integrated set of “hard” and “soft” skills for the digital era.

Methodology

The theoretical and methodological aspects of the study are based on the basic theoretical principles of labor economics, management theory, economic psychology, as well as the theory of organizations, the general theory of systems, the theory of human capital. To substantiate the conclusions and suggestions during the research, methods of systemic, historical, logical and comparative analysis, methods of scientific observation, as well as questionnaires using open questions with subsequent processing of the results by the method of the grounded theory of Corbin and Straus will be used.

Analysis

Among the basic professional skills of already near 2020, the World Economic Forum identified cognitive flexibility, creativity, problem sensitivity, self-control and emotional intelligence, logical and mathematical reasoning, visualization, active perception and critical thinking, as well as the ability to coordinate and train others (Digital Work Research, 2018). At the same time, the analysis shows the lack of uniform templates for formalizing requirements for professional knowledge and skills in the field of information and communication technologies for civil service positions in the UAE. In some job regulations, they are referred to as “professional skills,” while in others they represent “basic knowledge and skills”, etc.

Also, there is no unified approach to the completeness of describing of these requirements: in some regulations it takes only a few lines, in others ‑ a page. If the purely technical digital skills required for federal employees are described in some detail, soft skills are almost neglected. Accordingly, in the training programs for employees, there are no technologies for the development of dynamic skills associated with a specific context or ecosystem of professional activity, creative and interpersonal skills.

Discussion

An adult plays a leading role in the learning process. A person who is distinguished by a certain level of basic professional competencies sets specific goals, strives for independence, self-realization, self-government. Namely this allows the most efficient use of cognitive resources, turning them into intellectual capital. Today, one of the most effective methods of adult education is the Kolb cycle, which involves self-reflection based on the integration of personal experience and acquired knowledge. In view of the complex nature of the competencies required for federal employees in the dynamic digital environment of the UAE, the application of Kolb cycle method seems to be very expedient.

Competencies characterize how highly efficient employees achieve success. From our point of view, for the conditions of “Work 4.0,” the most successful interpretation of competence is the ability to apply or use a set of related knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary for the successful implementation of important work functions or tasks in a specific working environment.

Conclusion

The current stage of development of the economy and society is characterized as the “new economy,” “innovative economy,” and “knowledge economy.” All these terms imply a level of development of the economic life of society when the following dramatic changes take place: the network form of coordination of economic entities becomes a priority; an orientation toward the introduction of innovations appears.

Moreover, human capital and information become the main factors of competitiveness, and the tertiary sector prevails in the national economy. In this regard, it becomes relevant to study the processes of possible expanding the competency model of civil servants to ensure that they meet the challenges of the digital environment, as well as the degree to which civil servants are prepared for further (continuous) digital transformation. In the proposed study, a model will be built for assessing and continuous improving the skills of the UAE federal employees to work in the digital environment and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, based on the integrated competency-based approach and the Kolb cycle.

References

Clarke, A., Lindquist, E., & Roy, J. (2017). Understanding governance in the digital era: An agenda for public administration research in Canada. Canadian Public Administration, 60(4), 457-475.

Colbert, A., Yee, N., & George, G. (2016). The digital workforce and the workplace of the future. The Academy of Management Journal, 59(3), 731-739.

Digital Work Research (2018). The digital workplace skills framework: Ensuring the workforce is ready to work digitally. London, United Kingdom: Digital Work Research.

Johansson, J., Abrahamsson, L., Bergvall-Kåreborn, B., & Fältholm, Y. (2017). Work and organization in a digital industrial context. Management Revue, 28(3), 281-297.

McKinsey (2016). Digital Middle East: Transforming the region into a leading digital economy. Summit, NJ: Digital McKinsey.

Prifti, L., Knigge, M., Kienegger, H., & Krcmar, H. (2017). A competency model for “Industry 4.0” employees. In Leimeister, J.M. & Brenner, W. (Eds.), In Proceedings der 13th Internationalen Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI 2017) (pp. 46-60). St. Gallen, Switzerland: University of St. Gallen.

Schroeder, W., Greef, S., & Schreiter, B. (2017). Shaping digitalisation industry 4.0-Work 4.0-regulation of the platform economy. Hanover, Germany: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

Shermon, G. (2017). Digital talent: Competencies and business models. Raleigh, NC: LULU Publishing.

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