The way we work is changing. Robots have already joined the workforce, along with a shift towards remote working and the metaverse. Technological advancements are impacting organisations and employees quickly and in a multitude of ways, displacing some jobs while creating new ones.
The onslaught of Covid-19 has also further accelerated the rate of digital transformation in workplaces — organisations are no longer confined to a fixed physical office space, but a central, digital ecosystem accessible across the globe. However, the increasing adoption of technology in the workplace has been far more challenging for older employees, compared to younger employees who are familiar with digital tools.
Do you know that around one in four Singaporean employees are aged 55 and older? With an ageing population, rampant ageism in the workplace, and older employees taking up a growing proportion of the labour force, it’s imperative for companies and employees themselves to recognise the importance of lifelong learning.
How then can employers equip mature workers with essential digital skills to navigate the tech-driven world? Read on to find out.
Why is digital literacy important for older employees?
As the workplace transitions towards a digital age with rapid adoption of productivity tools, are older employees ready and willing to utilise them?
Digital literacy is important because it enables them to manage their tasks more effectively, create transparency across the team, and facilitate better collaboration and connection. It also helps to bridge generational gaps in a diverse workforce with the use of common digital tools.
The shift away from paperwork towards cloud-based file management tools also enables better employee self-service, where employees can easily update their personal information, licences, certifications, and make leave requests quickly and seamlessly.
Fancy tools aside, basic communication in the workplace involves messages, emails and presentations — all of which require digital literacy skills in order to work efficiently.
Information and communication technologies are constantly evolving
And so should your employees. Digital literacy isn’t something that comes naturally to everyone — even young employees need to constantly upskill and learn. It’s important for organisations to continually improve the digital literacy of your teams, and here’s how you can do it.
Create effective learning pathways
Employees are much happier, more engaged, and productive when they feel supported by their organisation with training and development opportunities that help them advance in their careers.
According to our Employee Movement and Retention Report, the top reason why Singaporeans were seeking a new role in a different organisation was because of the lack of career opportunities. Singaporean employees are hardworking and constantly looking for growth in their careers — which is a great opportunity for businesses to retain staff (especially the older ones) by allowing them to grow with you.
Create learning pathways so you enable employees to use their talents and skills to bring your business to greater heights. Furthermore, it shows that you value your employees regardless of age, and are committed towards ensuring they get the training and resources they want. There are plenty of training partners, courses, and government-led initiatives here in Singapore that can provide your employees with the tools they need to upskill.
Invest in a learning management system
The best investment you’ll make is investing in your employees — give them the power to pursue continual development and develop their skills with Employment Hero’s Learning Management System (LMS).
You’ll get to track their progress, test their knowledge, build custom learning pathways and even upload your own content. By providing your employees with the tools they need to grow and develop, it’ll keep them feeling fulfilled and boost retention rates. Get your team up to speed with all the digital skills they need to know as they gain access to thousands of courses, available on-demand.
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Tips for helping older employees adapt to digital technology
1. Leverage ‘Smart Nation’ initiatives
As Singapore accelerates towards its Smart Nation vision, it has adopted a pre-emptive approach to ensure that nobody will be left behind in an inclusive, digitally-enabled society.
Companies can leverage these initiatives to help senior employees learn new digital skills, as part of their supportive efforts in enhancing their employability and capabilities. However, take note – these are targeted towards educating older adults with basic digital skills. Assess your employee’s digital literacy skills so you can recommend the most appropriate resources accordingly.
Seniors Go Digital programme
Senior Singaporeans require more assistance when it comes to learning digital skills — which is why the Seniors Go Digital initiative was introduced. Designed to guide older workers through three main tiers of digital skills — Communication Skills, Government Services and Lifestyle apps, e-Payments and Digital Banking — they learn how to better use their digital devices for a variety of functions through fun and easy ways.
They can opt to learn through one-on-one guided sessions at their nearest SG Digital community hub; join group-learning sessions with interactive, hands-on activities; or pick up skills on their own through various online learning resources.
Those who meet the eligibility criteria, have attended these learning programmes, and picked up at least one basic digital skill at the SG Digital community hubs are also entitled to subsidised smartphone and mobile plans.
The SG Digital Office is now also partnering with employers to go into workplaces to train senior employees, under the new SDO@Workplace engagement channel. Employers will be able to train senior employees using the Seniors Go Digital curriculum, equipping them with relevant skills in an increasingly digital workplace.
People’s Association (PA) Senior Academy
A partnership between the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and People’s Association (PA), the PA Senior Academy was launched to encourage seniors aged 50 and above to pursue lifelong learning and active lifestyles.
They provide accessible and affordable senior-friendly IT-related courses conducted in English and Mandarin, at learning hubs in community clubs located islandwide with customised classes available.
2. Encourage usage of SkillsFuture credits
Older employees have a total of $1500 SkillsFuture credits to be used for a wide range of eligible SkillsFuture courses, if they haven’t used them already.
All Singaporeans aged 25 years and above have a $500 opening credit in SkillsFuture, and there was a further $500 credit top-up in 2020 for Singaporean citizens aged 25 and above, along with an additional special top-up of $500 for individuals aged 40 to 60 inclusive. That’s a huge subsidy available for employees to offset the costs of attending upskilling courses.
In addition, the SkillsFuture Mid-Career Enhanced Subsidy further supports and encourages lifelong learning, helping mid-career individuals stay responsive to a changing workplace by heavily subsidising up to 90% of course fees for eligible individuals aged 40 years and above.
3. Implement Techskills Accelerator (TESA) training programmes
Aimed at equipping working professionals with information and communications technology (ICT) skills, the TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA) programme helps to enhance training and placement opportunities for ICT jobs by facilitating the reskilling or upskilling of employees to meet industry needs.
As an employer, you will receive funding from the relevant agencies to implement the training programme, be able to employ ICT professionals who undergo/have undergone training, and also be able to upskill existing employees who are mid-level ICT professionals.
4. Have regular check-ins to track progress
Conducting regular 1:1s with your older employees is important to ascertain any digital challenges they face in the workplace, and what measures or steps can be taken to solve these problems. They also enable managers to pinpoint which digital tools the older employees are unfamiliar with, and direct them to relevant training resources to improve their confidence and skills.
1:1s, performance reviews, and feedback are all a key part of Employment Hero’s features for managing employee performance, and an absolute game-changer in guiding both managers and employees through structured, constructive and bi-directional feedback for professional growth.
5. Utilise free resources online
As a small business, you might not have sufficient budgets to provide in-house training courses and programs in a variety of technology-related fields, such as data analytics, how to use a digital device and more — but there are plenty of helpful resources online to help guide your older employees in using digital technology.
Platforms like Youtube, Udemy, Coursera, Skillshare, and Google’s Digital Garage have plenty of videos and courses you can check out, along with awesome sites like GetSetUp which is tailored towards the older community.
6. Incorporate mentor-mentee trainings
The older generation has a wealth of knowledge of experience. The younger generation has strong digital skills and enthusiasm. Put them together and what do you get? A wonderful learning collaboration that goes both ways.
Match young employees with older employees as mentors and mentees — this not only helps to break down intergenerational silos in offices, it also facilitates learning between both parties. Older employees get to ask questions regarding computer skills, while younger employees can guide them through the entire process.
A key aspect that needs to be reiterated to older employees through this training is the importance of digital transformation — the benefits it brings and how it will impact the nature of their roles. They need to be educated on why the older methods and processes of doing things are not viable any longer, and that new models need to be implemented, so they finally understand how important digital literacy is.
Useful digital tools for your business that are easy to learn
Another way to facilitate the adoption of digital literacy skills for older employees, is to implement digital tools which are incredibly user-friendly!
- Employment Hero
Make every employee’s experience oh so smooth and fuss-free with our all-in-one HR and payroll software that enables easy employee self-service. Not only does it promote learning and independence, it also makes complex processes much more streamlined and straightforward, which are particularly helpful for older employees who struggle with using complex digital technology.
With Employment Hero, employees can update their own personal information anytime they want, submit timesheets and request leave in under 30 seconds, access their payslips seamlessly and more. We’re not kidding — check out how quickly you can do them below!
2. Asana
Asana makes task management so easy — plus it’s accessible from anywhere, regardless of whether you’re working remotely or in the office. At Employment Hero, we use and love Asana because it helps us manage our tasks on time. This helps us be more productive whilst keeping everyone accountable for their work.
Asana isn’t complex to use either — tasks are assigned so there’s transparency across the team for the week, month, and year ahead, and can be checked off once complete. Older employees no longer have to dig through stacks of paper to find their notes either — everything can be transferred online and searched for in a jiffy.
Add links to other documents, tag colleagues to review tasks, add meeting notes, levels of priority, categories, statuses, and more! It may look daunting to grasp if your business has a full dashboard, but once older employees learn how to use it, task management will never be the same for them again. You can also refer them to Asana’s library of resources to help them get started.
3. Slack
Set your multigenerational team up for success with an effective communication tool like Slack. Not only is it a great way to keep your team accountable across updates in the business, you can create different channels for all kinds of topics, and it’s a much easier alternative than sending emails and sifting through a long email thread for information.
You can pin important messages for easy retrieval and reference for each channel, and it also has inbuilt video and voice calling capability called a ‘huddle’ — where employees who prefer to discuss issues quickly can have a call with each other.
You can also connect more tools to make Slack more integrated, and sync it up with your Google Calendar, Google Drive, Asana and more — bringing your work tools together for a seamless workspace. There’s also plenty of resources to help guide older employees with getting started on Slack.
Digital transformation is key, no one gets left behind
Digital transformation can contribute to a 60% increase in annual revenue per employee. When you invest in tech for your business, it will benefit your results tremendously!
If you’re looking to digitally transform your human resources and payroll functions, get in touch with us today and we can walk you through a demo.
There’s so much you can do to support older employees in adopting digital literacy skills and joining the future of work. They’ve got so much more to give, all they need is the relevant knowledge and resources to receive.
Guide to Digital Transformation
