Digital Competence & Ability to learn
- impacting KRAs of HR Leaders

Role of CHRO and HR leaders in Digital Transformation

Digital transformation may attempt to change the way work is being done by introducing powerful digital solutions – but nothing will change on ground unless the workforce changes with it.

  • Since the role of people is pivotal to ensuring success of digital transformation, it is a strategic imperative for the CHRO and HR leaders to ensure that employees have the requisite digital skills for the digital transformation journey.

Strategic HR Opportunity...

A key transformation that has taken place in the past decade is the evolution of HR into a strategic function.Today, digital transformation is presenting HR with an opportunity to prove that they are key strategic differentiators for the organization.

  • In this, one of the biggest considerations for HR leaders is to hire digitally competent people externally, and upskill existing employees to the required levels of digital competence.
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Is your Workforce ready for the Future Workplace?

Work is changing in ways that the world has never seen before.On the one hand,AI & advanced technologies are bringing in major transitions in occupations and shifting demand for skills...

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EasyTalent Digital Competence &

Learning Ability Test (DCAL)

To hire those who possess the necessary digital competence and ability to learn, talent managers will require putting the job applicants through DCAL...

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Raising Organizational Digital Competence is a crucial KRA of CHRO & TA Leaders

in era of Digital Transformation

One of the biggest considerations for HR leaders is to hire digitally competent people for future technology-rich work environments...

HR Leaders have to drive the 'people' part of digital transformation


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The Organizational Digital Competence (ODC) Score


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Campus Placement and Hiring


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Using DCAL Score for hiring


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Why do youngsters who are already so much into technology and Internet need a DCAL assessment?


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Future of Work

digital-competence

EasyTalent Digital Competence &

Ability to Learn (DCAL) Test


HR Leaders have to drive the 'people' part of digital transformation

The CIO & CHRO KRAs

While it is the KRA of the CIO to ensure that the right digital technologies are implemented to enable digital transformation, it is an equally crucial KRA of the CHRO/HR Leaders to ensure that people have the right digital competence and ability to learn.

It is easier to measure the CIOs’ activities because technology deployments are physically quantifiable, but it is far more difficult to quantify the digital skills of people and the collective organizational digital competence.

  • This is one of the reasons, surveys have revealed, that HR leaders haven’t been directly accountable in the digital transformation process. However, this is changing and top management is expecting HR leaders to quantify and report their actions in raising the level of organizational digital competence.

The Organizational Digital Competence (ODC) Score

The ODC Score can be used by HR leaders as a quantitative measure to report the level of digital competence and its improvement to the CEO and Board.

To support the digital transformations that are ongoing in organizations, HR leaders have a strategic responsibility to raise level of Organizational Digital Competence.

As an HR Leader you can raise ODC Score by:

1.Establishing your organization’s current level of ODC

2.Then, implementing measures to continuously raise the ODC

A Establishing your organization’s current level of ODC

Step 1

Select a random sample of employees from each department/unit of the organization. The sample size could be about 10% of the size of the department/unit (the larger the sample the more accurate is the established ODC)

Step 2

Administer them the DCAL test (in anonymous mode so that they don’t feel threatened or hesitant)

Step 3

Total the scores obtained by all participants and divide that by the number of participants to obtain the average. This average number is the representative ODC of the organization at that point in time

B Implementing measures to continuously raise the ODC
Hire right:
  • In addition to the normal tests and interviews that you are currently administering for candidate selection, also administer DCAL tests to candidates
  • Select only those candidates who have scored at least 5% more than your organization’s current ODC
Train existing employees:
  • Conduct periodic digital competency awareness & training programs.
  • Administer post-training DCAL tests to participants.
  • The target outcome of the training must be to ensure all employees undergoing the training should achieve post-training DCAL test scores of at least 5% more than the organization ODC.

Campus Placement and Hiring

Students, jobseekers, and existing employees can appear for the online EasyTalent DCAL test, and acquire their Personal DCAL Scores.

The Personal DCAL Score is a valid indicator of the individual’s digital competence as a whole, and in each of the five areas comprising the twenty-one competencies that make up holistic digital competence including awareness of digital technologies and the individual’s ability to learn and adapt to digital advances.

  • An individual’s Personal DCAL Score is the representation of his/her digital competence. By specifying their Personal DCAL score in their CVs, jobseekers can showcase their digital competence to prospective employers.

Using DCAL Score for hiring

The Personal DCAL Score is indicative of the applicant’s digital competence and ability to learn.

  • Employers can define in their JDs the minimum DCAL Score they expect applicants to possess.

Employers can also create customized DCAL assessments in EasyTalent that can validate applicants’ competencies in specific areas important to the organization.

  • In campus placements, employers can either accept the candidates’ Personal DCAL Scores, or they can create and administer their own DCAL test.

To ensure test integrity and prevent impersonation, employers can have the candidates go through an Aadhaar authentication and facial matching (which are inbuilt into EasyTalent), prior to the DCAL test, and also have the entire DCAL test proctored to ensure integrity and prevent impersonation and cheating.


Why do youngsters who are already so much into technology and Internet need a DCAL assessment?

Because many digital natives and many young job seekers lack a specific skill that employers routinely need, which is "problem-solving in technology-rich environments”.

Young people today, who have grown up surrounded by technology toys and tools of all kinds, view technology more as a way to entertain themselves. Computers to them are portals to games, social media sites, and watching television programs.

And so, these young people have been less able to perform basic tasks on the computers. They are baffled as to how to create a folder, link files, do sorts, or create macros - all pretty basic stuff....all stuff that is required in the workplace.

”Research has shown that large amounts of computer, mobile and internet use only contribute to digital skills at the operational level. The higher cognitive ability for critical search and selection of information is not a consequence of higher consumption. Users can simply stay on the same level and only use some specific applications. Therefore, high consumption of technology as such should not be regarded as proof of digital competence”

– Van Deursen, The Digital Competence Wheel
Digital natives aren't as tech-savvy as they think they are
  • Generally speaking, millennials know technology as it relates to what is important to them, and often, that is social media.
  • While they spend an average of 35 hours every week on digital media, all that time spent glued to a small screen or navigating social media platforms like Facebook hasn't translated beyond social media posts to technology competence - nearly six out of 10 millennials can't do basic tasks such as sorting, searching for and emailing data from a spreadsheet.
  • While they spend an average of 35 hours every week on digital media, all that time spent glued to a small screen or navigating social media platforms like Facebook hasn't translated beyond social media posts to technology competence - nearly six out of 10 millennials can't do basic tasks such as sorting, searching for and emailing data from a spreadsheet.
  • The issues workplaces may find with millennials are in practical applications of technology and problem-solving skills.
Survey by: American Institutes for Research