Upskilling of Digital Skills During Digital Transformation : A Qualitative Study about Mindset & Challenges of Middle-aged group Employees in Supply and Finance Units.

Abstract: Industrial Revolution 4.0 and Finance Technology are influencing firms to adopt the DigitalTransformation strategy to achieve their long terms goals and remain competitive. Thistransformation is driving an evolution in the way of working in Supply and Finance units andcreating an emerging demand to implicate digital skills and consider them as core competenciesneeded for the workforces in those units. Management takes a vital role in supporting theemployees to upgrade their digital skills and providing them with a culture that facilitates theirefforts throughout this shifting journey. Middle-aged groups of the workforce make a majorcontribution to the labour market, and they are likely to have a higher digital skills gap thanyounger groups. This requires firms to put more focus on upskilling and enhancing the digitalskills of this group to enable successful adoption of the increased interaction with technology.During the upskilling of digital skills processes, the experience of the workforce may includechallenges. It is important for the leaders and human resources to understand the mindsets ofthose employees and their challenges to consider when revising the digital skills learninginitiatives. Thus, this master thesis examines the mindset and challenges of supply and finance employeesfrom the middle-age group of the workforce during digital skills upskilling programs driven byDT. Additionally, based on the finding to develop a framework that can help firms wheninitiating digital skills upskilling programs. For this, an interpretive qualitative study wasconducted. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews and Lichtman 3 Csthematic analysis was used and generated five concepts. Those concepts represent the findingsof the master’s thesis research and are interpreted and discussed with the help of the theoreticalframework of the double-loop learning method of Organizational learning Theory for Argyrisand Schön (1997). The research findings show the scoped group embraces digital transformation and has anopen mindset to change and the ability to contribute, but they also face challenges that are:Incentive and Recognition, Organizational Communication, Working and Learning inparallel, Customized learning programs. Based on the identified challenges, a framework wasdeveloped to support human resources and supply and finance leaders to consider duringupskilling of digital skills programs, to provide a better experience for the digital onboardingof the workforces during DT. This study contributes to the existing knowledge of theinformatics research field. The practical contribution is to help organizations, and humanresources, in improving the digital skills upskilling programs and frameworks, additionally toorganizational learning.