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Hybrid working: skills for digital transformation

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1.1 Essential functional skills

The Essential Digital Skills Framework for the United Kingdom (Gov.uk, 2018) sets out the digital skills and understanding all adults require to interact in a digital world. There are five categories:

communicating
handling information and content
transacting
problem solving
being safe and legal online.

Figure 1 illustrates how these categories relate to each other.

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Figure 1 Essential Digital Skills – Framework Diagram (Crown Copyright, Gov.uk, 2018)

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Image showing the Essential Digital Skills Framework using a circular diagram of circles within circles. The smallest circle in middle is labelled with ‘Foundation skills’, this expands to a larger circle split into four sections: ‘Communicating: Communicate and collaborate and share online’. ‘Handling information and content: Find, manage and store digital information and content securely.’ ‘Transacting: Apply for services, buy and sell, and manage transactions online.’ ‘Problem solving: Find solutions to problems using digital tools and online services.’ Finally, there is another surrounding circle that repeats the phrase ‘Be safe, legal and confident online.’

Figure 1 Essential Digital Skills – Framework Diagram (Crown Copyright, Gov.uk, 2018)

Table 1 breaks the categories down further and provides more detailed definitions.

Table 1
Being safe and responsible online and offline	Digital wellbeing, responsibilities when working online – security, privacy and data protection, accessibility, understanding processes and policies, behaviour, and non-digital considerations – e.g. your desk set up, not writing down your password.
Using devices and handling information	Understanding hardware, software, operating systems and applications, and how to manage and store digital information and assets.
Communicating	How to communicate effectively digitally depending on the ‘tools’ and ‘context’
Creating and editing	Developing the skills to create and edit using digital tools, and reflect best practice and guidelines for the creation of digital content and products.
Transacting	The ability to interact with digital forms, systems and payments.
Problem solving	The ability to find solutions and approaches, and use digital tools to assist with this.

Table 2 provides some examples of digital skills and capabilities required in the workplace:

Table 2
Essential basic skills all individuals require	Advanced/specialist skills
Behaving safely and legally online Email, instant messaging and virtual meetings Word processing Web-based research Data entry and handling Using social media/networking Problem solving Understanding your digital carbon footprint	User experience design, and digital design Coding Programming, web, and app development SEO, SEM, and content creation Data science, analysis, and visualisation Digital learning and development Digital project and product management Digital marketing and social media Digital leadership capabilities Digital transformation decision making

Activity 3 How digitally confident are you?

Timing: 15 minutes

Read the descriptions of the skills and examples in the Essential Digital Skills Framework, which can be accessed via either:

Essential Digital Skills Framework [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] website (we recommend this if you use a screen reader).
Essential Digital Skills Framework interactive PDF.

Then use the polls below to consider how digitally confident you are.

Digital foundation skills

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