Skilled employees enable organizations to use technology more effectively, leading to increases in productivity and competitiveness and ensuring that operational objectives are achieved more efficiently. Moreover, digitally literate employees will also communicate more effectively both internally and externally to the clients and stakeholders of an organization.
An Italian study on the ‘Cost of Ignorance’ found that ECDL* certification gives a total return on investment of €3,246 per person annually as well as 47% competence increase from pre-training levels. Click here to download
*ICDL is referred to as ECDL in Europe
"ICDL increases efficiency and thus productivity"
Digitally literate employees add real value to an organization:
- Increase the overall efficiency and productivity
- Achieve specific goals and objectives more effectively
- Ensure unnecessary administrative burdens are reduced or eliminated
- Significantly enhance internal and external communication within an organization
- Ensure a greater uptake and utilization of technology resulting in greater returns on investment in that technology
- Employees' confidence and job satisfaction are increased
- Unnecessary time and money wasted through incompetence is eliminated
Sample differences between employees with ICT skills and those without:
| Digitally illiterate employees | Digitally literate employees |
| Spend time trying to find and use a function that they ‘know’ the application can carry out | Actually know the functions of their applications and use them to carry out tasks in seconds |
| Phone helpdesk/tech support to install and set up devices and drivers and lose productivity whilst waiting for assistance | Install devices independently, set it up and get on with their jobs |
| Waste time typing individual letters, envelope labels and other communications targeted at large groups | Use mail merge in word processing to get the job done in a short amount of time |
| Spend a lot of time producing poor quality documents and presentations, which often need revision | Produce professional quality documents and presentations efficiently without support from other staff |
| Manually input calculable data into spreadsheets increasing the risk of errors | Use formulas and functions to efficiently and effectively carry out complex calculations |
| Struggle with databases and are 'afraid' of the application | Confidently run queries and generate reports displaying information that would take time to produce manually |
| Have difficulty managing their emails and are unaware of associated security risks | Manage emails effectively, understand associated risks and keep the organization's systems secure |
