Strategic Upskilling And Digital Competency Development In The IT Sector: A Catalyst For Organizational Agility And Innovation

Abstract

The present study examines the benefits of strategic upskilling and digital competency building to build organizational agility and innovation in the Information Technology (IT) sphere. With the blistering of digital transformation, companies find the need to respond to fast-evolving technological environments, and digital skills are kept abreast of a workforce. The study is guided by a quantitative method in which it examines the interdependence between upskilling efforts, digitization skills, and other important organizational results, like agility and innovation. The data was obtained through surveys of 150 IT organizations and their employees, addressing strategic initiatives of upskilling, employee digital skills, and their attitudes to agility and innovation of their organization. The direct and indirect relationships were tested using regression analysis, whereas organizational agility was used as a mediating factor between upskilling and innovation. The results indicated poor correlations between upskilling and organizational performance, which implies that although upskilling cannot be ignored, it is insufficient in achieving agility and innovation. Moreover, the existence of the negative relation between upskilling hours and innovation was described suggesting the presence of the diminishing returns. The findings indicate that the upskilling should be done with the specific goal in mind and that being digitally competent is not enough to facilitate innovation. The study is informative to IT organizations that would like to adopt the application of workforce development to their level of performance and it gives future research guidelines to address the wider influences of organizational agility and innovation.