When we talk about smart working, we often refer to the technological component of this new way of organizing work: digital tools today allow us not to be anchored to a desk in an office to carry out our work. Nothing more true. However, it is equally valid that smart working involves much more than digital tools. The real innovative drive brought forward by smart working lies, in fact, more in the behavioral patterns of the corporate population than in the purely operational ones.
Smart Working Puts People At The Center
The new world of work puts the person at the center, for whom it is thus possible to best reconcile personal needs with those of the entire organization. The individual worker is made responsible and more autonomous in managing their work, more aware of the results to be achieved and more accessible in defining the times and places for carrying out the activities. With smart working, therefore, the worker becomes genuinely autonomous in managing his work activity, which involves a not indifferent paradigm shift.
Indeed, for smart working to be a helpful work tool, it is essential to build a system of highly collaborative relationships with intense involvement, even emotionally, of people. This is why the climate of trust and commitment, i.e. strong identification of the worker with the company, must be maximum. It is also necessary to lay the foundations for constant and fruitful communication, especially remotely, between staff members who are called to collaborate even when they do not share the same workspace.
Digital Soft Skills For Smart Working
For this reason, the corporate populations involved in innovative working projects must be aware of the change they are asked to implement, not only from an organizational point of view but also from a behavioral point of view. This is why it is increasingly important to develop those soft skills, or digital soft skills, which in a context such as smart working are one of the keys to approaching this new way of organizing work in the best possible way. What are these digital soft skills? What are the digital soft skills for smart working? The fundamental ones involve:
Digital Mindset
That is the ability to develop a mindset willing to adapt to the frenetic pace imposed by digital transformation.
Digital Literacy
This concerns confidence in using digital devices to carry out one’s work.
Knowledge Networking
Hence the ability to retrieve, organize, capitalize and share the wealth of information within a virtual community.
Digital Privacy
The ability to design data confidentiality based on the reference tools and contexts.
Digital Problem Solving & Creativity
An indispensable characteristic concerns the ability to solve problems promptly through digital tools and the manipulation of digital content.
Digital Team-Working
That is the ability to work productively, stimulate engagement among colleagues, and actively participate in the team, even in a remote context.
Virtual Communication
Confidence in managing relationships on digital channels, where space-time distances cancel out in one-to-one and one-to-many modes.
Virtual Communication And Digital Team Working
By virtual communication, we mean the ability to communicate effectively using various digital channels explicitly created for this purpose. To communicate effectively, it is necessary to develop knowledge to put into practice so that it becomes a skill. For example, more is needed to know how to write correctly in a specific language to prepare a theme, a journalistic article or a scientific paper. In the same way, citing one example among the many possible ones, it is necessary to be aware that the language used on Facebook cannot be the same as that used in an article published on a blog.
And the digital team working? This expression means the ability to work productively, stimulate engagement among colleagues and actively participate in a group, even remotely. As with any other activity, collaboration also requires knowledge and mastery of specific behaviors and tools to lead to the pre-set results. Examples of this are the ability to work in a team and to work towards objectives. But not only! In addition to virtual communication and digital team working, a soft skill such as the Digital Mindset is also essential to start a process of change based on the dynamics introduced by Digital Transformation.
Can Digital Dictionary Help You Develop Digital Soft Skills?
The answer is yes! Digital Dictionary ordered the change. It means keeping up with economic, social, cultural and technological change, always having an up-to-date focus on trends and their repercussions. The great challenge for companies is digital transformation: a vortex that has upset businesses before the explosion of new technologies and digital media, forcing any sector to renew its processes and skills. Developing the soft skills to govern the digital wave and keep one’s competitiveness high requires a mindset change, crucial in this (still) pandemic phase, but it will also be so after.
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