The Role of Digital or Visual Literacy for Future Work

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A majority of people interpret digital literacy as a stream of complicated technical proficiencies, including coding and programming. Rather digital literacy are skills that are not limited to the technical department but skills that will be required by all workforce to survive in the near future (Bauer, Schlund, & Vocke, 2017). It relates to the ability to understand and use technology and to find and use information online. Digital literacy levels start from a muggle who does not require skills, a digital employee who uses technology to communicate, an employee using a digital system and a maker who produces digital systems. Globally the developed countries are more digital literate compared to developing nations. Digital literacy has become an elementally part of our lives in both personal and professional lives. In the modern world, people are more affiliated, and digital techniques are changing how work is done. For instance, during the current time of the coronavirus outbreak, digital connections and literacy have played a key role. To prepare the future workforce, joint approaches are required to educate individuals on digital skills, not only on standard techniques but enterprise skills that will be useful in the future. The rapid integration of digital by businesses and governments has created enormous opportunities, such as cyber security awareness, cutting cost for business and competitive advantage for digital firms and it has also been faced with challenges like resistance from employees and lack of clear plan and vision.

Digital literacy is defined by Guan et al. (2017) as having the necessary skills to learn, live, and work in a given society where access to information and communication are increasingly available via digital technologies including social media, the internet, mobile devices, and other platforms. Image 1 below shows some of the main components of digital literacies and how they can be applied to the workforce. For example today, understanding and being good at using web browsers, Photoshop, editing and creating software, search engines, blogs, and email are ways to showcase learning. These tools can be used to evaluate online resources in terms of trustworthiness and accuracy of information. The tools facilitate more learning, enable a livelihood, and provide assistance for one to work. Therefore, it is vital for people to become digitally literate so that they are able to not just understand but also use technology as a means of survival.

Image 1: Summarization of digital literacy (Source: Klassen, 2019)

Digital literacy benefits cybersecurity awareness. According to Campean (2019), digital literacy training and initiatives are tailored towards protection awareness and eradication of cyber threats. Workforce plays a key role in maintaining business cybersecurity despite the availability of internet firewalls and antivirus to enhance security. Malware and hacking compromise business security providing digital literacy to the workforce helps in preventing human error which attracts such threats. Lack of proper and sufficient digital skills would make hackers take advantage of business workforce digital illiteracy, such as connecting to open Wi-Fi with the business gadget. Therefore, digital literacy to employees benefits the company as it protects business finance and reputation.

A workforce using digital techniques to manage are able to cut costs. Providing the training and upskilling our workforce cuts cost. It is an investment which helps business in the long run despite a large amount of money required to equip employees and install the technology. Features such as time-saving and efficient communication related to digitalization create more extra time for the business to deal with other transactions, represented in monetary terms by businesses. Skilling and training boosts employee motivation as companies are developing them to do better and keep them in your business; hence, they perform their roles well, which is advantageous to the business. The cost which may be required to hire new employees and train them is not incurred. The increase in employee productivity saves labor costs which in turn cuts down costs.

Additionally, workers equipped with digital gain an advantage. Having strong digital skills in the modern days is no longer optional rather, it is already a necessity for the business’s survival. Digital literacy is a fundamental component of the competitive business framework. For a business to gain an advantage over the competitors, it should prioritize digital skills such as email marketing and search engine optimization, given that most businesses do not engage in digital business as their capability or requirement. In current days most people have access to emails and smartphone thus the business will be able to advertise directly to customers and avoid expensive traditional advertisement platforms which competitors are using. According to Matli and Ngoepe (2020), the digital divide exists for those businesses or individuals with minimal digital advancements or no advancement. Businesses using digital skills will be more efficient compared to businesses using traditional ones as they will be able to streamline production and improve a different aspect of the business. The modernization and new opportunity for development enhance the opportunity to be more competitive.

As businesses are struggling to stay ahead of their competitors through digitalization, they are faced with challenges. The transformation to a digital business requires a change in the business functioning and the blending of employees and machines. One of the main challenges is the lack of a clear vision and plan. It is not just a simple transformation but a combination of skills and experts at both the internal and external levels of a business. The high levels of uncertainties and variabilities in technology hinder proper planning of the process of execution. The business develops steps for innovation execution but towards the last stage of implementing new digital skills changes the plan. Companies need to execute an innovation quickly and for it to complete a digital transformation. Sufficient resources should be budgeted to ensure digital literacy is done to the workforce before commissioning an innovation.

Organizational resistance to change is also another aspect that affects the digital literacy process for workers in preparation for future work. Change is almost always rejected as people try to maintain the status quo. To change how a business operates and employee organization challenges the role of each individual in the firm (Pawluczuk, 2019). The team should collaborate and coordinate in every step of the process to ensure the transformation is successful. With proper collaboration, it is not easy to proactively address and transform the digital culture. The components of digital literacy including creativity, collaboration, effective communication, critical thinking, e-safety, functional skills, and social and cultural understanding are all affected. Various departments and stakeholders should collaborate and be intentional as such transformation will involve modifying present technology structure, which are barriers to successful transformation.

In conclusion digital literacy, the ability to understand and use information when presented with computers, is a development that every business needs to survive in the digital era. It is also a commodity for people to have in order to increase their ability for future work. To ensure the future workforce can perform tasks in the future, digital literacy should be undertaken by companies. Still, collaboration in training by the relevant bodies such as academic institutions and government training is necessary. Overall, digital literacy must be understood beyond the regular use of a computer to include more in-depth learning and creation of abilities to use this learning to benefit in terms of skills and knowledge.

References

Bauer, W., Schlund, S., & Vocke, C. (2017, July). Working life within a hybrid world–how digital transformation and agile structures affect human functions and increase quality of work and business performance. In International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (pp. 3-10). Springer, Cham.

Campean, S. (2019). The Human Factor at the Center of a Cyber Security Culture. International Journal of Information Security and Cybercrime (IJISC), 8(1), 51-58.

Guan, Y., Zhuang, M., Cai, Z., Ding, Y., Wang, Y., Huang, Z., & Lai, X. (2017). Modeling

dynamics in career construction: Reciprocal relationship between future work self and career exploration. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 101, 21-31.

Klassen, A. (2019). Deconstructing Paper-Lined Cubicles: Digital Literacy and Information

Technology Resources in the Workplace. iJAC, 12(3), 5-13.

Matli, W., & Ngoepe, M. (2020). Capitalizing on digital literacy skills for capacity development of people who are not in education, employment or training in South Africa. African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, 12(2), 129-139.

Pawluczuk, A., Hall, H., Webster, G., & Smith, C. (2019). Digital youth work: youth workers’ balancing act between digital innovation and digital literacy insecurity.