Finding digital talent is one of the biggest challenges facing companies today. But it’s particularly difficult for large, traditional firms, especially those which operate in consolidated, non-growth industries (think pulp and paper, steel, airlines) and which are often located away from the metropolitan areas where data scientists live.
The Barriers to Recruiting and Employing Digital Talent
Finding digital talent is one of the biggest challenges facing companies today. But it’s particularly difficult for large, traditional firms, especially those which operate in consolidated, non-growth industries and are often located away from the metropolitan areas where data scientists live. Many have had to get creative in their recruiting and employee development. But some of the common ways they try to increase the digital skills of their workforces — from creating accelerators to training internal talent — present their own difficulties. In studying a dozen industrial firms in Europe, the authors point to three big challenges: 1) integrating digital talent into the core business, 2) leveraging digital skills across the organization, and 3) seeing bottom-up initiatives through.