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Making change happen
It’s all in the name, Digital Motivators ‘motivate’. Or, as one Digital Motivator put it:
“Digital isn’t traditionally seen as something that is core to individual job roles – it’s seen more as an IT or wider role thing and staff see it as in addition to their core role rather than intrinsic to it. Also, buy in from managers who see their staff teams already at full capacity can be a challenge. The Digital Motivator model has worked well with this – we motivate down and agitate up, to ensure that the message is out there that digital can make life easier rather than more complicated.”
As a Digital Motivator you’ll be communicating and influencing two distinct audiences: senior managers in your organisation, and frontline staff/volunteers who would make good Digital Champions. As is the case in any change management process, we can expect resistance. This is perfectly normal, and you shouldn’t let it deter you. As Digital Motivators, we can think about how we communicate the benefits of digital, anticipate some of the barriers or concerns that people have, and think about how we use this to inform our approach.
Making change happen with senior managers
Agitate
verb
- to argue energetically, especially in public, in order to achieve a particular type of change
As part of your role as a Digital Motivator you may need to ‘agitate’ upwards. This means making a strong case to those in senior positions that digital skills needs to be a priority. This won’t be the case for all Digital Motivators, primarily those acting as a Digital Lead, but we can all play a role in creating a positive digital culture.
Resistance is normal, and expected. Common barriers might include:
- Time and resources to support a change management process.
- Not understanding the importance or relevance of digital skills for the workforce or for supporting user engagement.
- Incorrect assumptions that: remote working during the pandemic means everyone has digital skills; use of social media and online shopping means people have the digital skills they need for work; younger people don’t need digital skills support.
We’ve collated some top tips and key messages you can use to help build a positive case for a digital skills programme in your organisation:
Top Tip
- Remote working hasn’t solved the digital skills deficit. In 2024, 18% of people in Scotland don’t have Essential Digital Skills for Work (Page 29).
- A digitally confident workforce helps futureproof your organisation and makes it easier to adapt. New digital platforms and technology won’t do what you want them to do unless the people using them have digital skills.
- Greater job satisfaction when employees are confident in how they do their jobs.
- Increased engagement with people who haven’t engaged with your services before.
- A digital skills programme is an opportunity to provide professional development opportunities for your workforce, either through learning new digital skills or acting as a Digital Champion to support others to learn.
- This work doesn’t need additional investment, it can be done by releasing and prioritising some existing resources.
- Link your work to local or national strategies. Digital inclusion and digital skills are at the heart of the Scottish Government and COSLA's digital strategy, “How Scotland will thrive in a digital world”.
- Don’t just outline the benefits, it’s also important to consider the risks of not taking any action to address a digital skills deficit e.g. risks of mishandling data, inability to deliver services effectively, difficulty adopting new technology/platforms.
Making change happen with frontline staff/volunteers
Motivate
verb
- to make someone eager to do something
- to influence someone's behaviour in a particular way
The most important role of a Digital Motivator is to build momentum and buy-in from the wider workforce. A good Digital Motivator should be able to inspire and bring people along with them – they’re natural leaders. Acting as a Digital Motivator gives you the opportunity to develop your own leadership skills. You’ll be responsible for motivating your Digital Champions as well as
Common barriers you may encounter from the wider workforce include:
- Not understanding the relevance of digital skills to their work.
- Digital is not a substitution for in-person interactions.
- Fear that frontline jobs will be made redundant as more process become digital.
- Some people could be more vulnerable online and susceptible to scams and fraud.
- Digital is for IT to worry about, not me.
Top tips to help build momentum with your colleagues:
Top Tip
- Digital skills are relevant to all roles, regardless of whether you’re delivering services digitally. For example, accessing payslips, online training, getting organisational updates.
- Digital Skills for Work will also help you with your Digital Skills for Life.
- Working digitally makes completing routine tasks more efficiently. This gives us more time to focus on more meaningful priorities.
- We can reach more people, especially those that traditionally haven’t engaged with our services when they weren’t digital.
- Doing things digitally isn’t doing something additional or extra. Digital is an enabler to help increase different forms of contact and communication, but we don’t promote it as the only option – it’s complimentary. Staff need to be reassured that human interaction remains vitally important and that digital won’t replace this.
- Technology is constantly evolving and changing. By working on your digital skills now you’ll find it easier to adapt to new systems and platforms in the future.
- By helping people with their digital skills and confidence you’re also helping to address social inequality.
- There are risks to being online, as there are risks to almost everything we do in the physical world. We learn how to mitigate these risks and protect ourselves rather than never leaving our own homes. Once staff feel confident about staying safe online and understand how to protect themselves, they will be in a better position to overcome the ‘risk’ barrier. Of course, digital might not be for everyone, but being able to make more informed decisions will ensure that everyone who can benefit from being online is given the opportunity.
- Remember: you’ll never get 100% buy-in. Aim for 20% and build momentum from there. Consider a ‘lighthouse approach’ – take an immersive deep dive in one team to establish what works best, then roll-out further.
“We have always seen Digital Inclusion as part of our wider Community Inclusion programme. Although it is important as a business for us to encourage people to engage with services online because of the financial benefits it entails, we have always been more interested in improving our [users'] quality of life. Digital is only one aspect of life and we wanted to provide a holistic approach to inclusion.”
“Remember that digital is not about finding new ways to do everything, it is about making lives easier for staff, [users] and anyone else you engage with by reducing paperwork, reducing time spent on repetitive tasks, promoting more engagement with each other across social divides and making life fun.”