There’s a paradox at the heart of our tech-driven world. The generation that grew up surrounded by screens, scrolling and social media may not possess the technical skills employers need.
While undeniably comfortable consuming technology, younger generations often lack the ability to create, troubleshoot or critically analyze it. In fact, although Gen Z spends over eight hours a day online, only 18% are confident in advanced digital skills like coding or development. More worryingly, only 44% believe they understand basic computing skills. For example, digital natives don’t understand how to find the best results on Google. This creates a serious issue, as individuals can hardly develop advanced skills if they can’t master the fundamentals. But, with Gen Z set to account for 27% of the workforce by 2025, businesses cannot afford to let this skills gap grow.
Today’s businesses need innovators, builders and problem solvers who can use emerging technologies like AI and quantum to continue pushing the world of work forward. Essentially, we need young people to understand the demands and benefits of these technologies, as they are quickly becoming our new colleagues.
While AI-adoption continues to soar throughout the business landscape, we need employees who know how to get the most out of this technology. For instance, having a solid understanding of its capabilities and limitations, and knowing how to prompt systems effectively will allow workers to make the most of AI and its potential benefits.
Digital natives without the digital know-how
So, what’s brought this younger generation to a digital standstill?
Well, first, there’s a hefty reliance on technology for consumption. As it stands, 72% of Gen Z access the internet for primarily entertainment purposes. From playing video games and scrolling on social media to online shopping and streaming, their appetite for the online is insatiable. This means that creative skills-based outlets like software design and development, coding and data analysis have fallen to the wayside. As a result, technical skills that could have been developed go undiscovered as young people spend little to no time exploring them.
Next, there’s the rise of user-friendly apps that require minimal technical knowledge to use. With 83% of consumers stating that a seamless user experience across all devices is essential, it’s evident that this easy-to-use nature is bordering on a non-negotiable. These apps have made our lives easier by providing built-in support, automated processes, straightforward interfaces and customization. Yet, the opportunity to learn and build tech skills has been taken away.
Finally, today’s culture of instant gratification is underpinned by these readily available solutions and 24/7 helplines. This has created a focus on instant answers and techniques, which misleads many into believing they grasp a technology or topic more than is the case. For example, getting a new phone used to entail a lengthy self-guided set up. Now, our phones automatically lead us through this process. In doing so, we have a false sense of belief that we understand how to set our phones up for optimal use. However, we just observed the autopilot at work. In reality, digital proficiency often skims the surface. It fails to venture below into the realm of in-depth understanding and application. Taking this a step further, a continual demand for immediacy can hinder a person’s ability to develop a healthy attention span, patience and focus, which are essential attributes for a successful workforce.
Learn, learn and then learn some more
It’s time to act. The key to turning this taste for technology into bona fide technical skill is to remove reliance and replace it with understanding. In doing so, more thought must be given to education. In line with this, there are two essential boxes that organizations must tick to adequately equip our future workforce with the know-how to help businesses thrive.
Out of the gate, we need to focus on revamping the education system. This would involve going back to the beginning and reshaping the curriculum to clarify and teach basic computer skills. As a result, students would be taught about the likes of coding fundamentals, data analysis and cybersecurity awareness. All of which are essential to the modern business environment.
By introducing these subjects and teaching softer skills such as deductive thinking early in the education system, schools can help to identify traces of technical talent sooner rather than later. In turn, this may spark an interest that leads to an individual pursuing a technical career through studying at a higher education facility or vocational training.
Alongside educational institutions like schools and universities, businesses need to take action. They need to partner with these institutions to offer real-world experience through internships and mentorship schemes. These types of initiatives help individuals to not only pick up new technical skills and knowledge, but improve other workplace essentials like confidence, self-awareness, communication and teamwork.
Our new digital workforce
Supposedly digital natives know how to navigate the technological landscape – but do they really? Despite being born into the online era, younger generations are struggling to get to grips with the technical skills needed to keep the modern world of work ticking over. But it can’t stay like this. Otherwise, we’ll enter an economic stalemate. Younger generations are not developing these skills because of a heavy reliance on technology for consumption, increasingly user-friendly apps and a demand for instant gratification. Therefore, we need change. We need to get rid of reliance on readily available solutions and replace it with a deeper technical understanding. This can be achieved through changing academic curriculum to meet the demands of our evolving business landscape, and providing real-world experiences that give individuals an opportunity for practice.
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