The Key to Cultivating Digital Talent Is a Great Digital Teacher
So you’ve just hired a recent college graduate to handle your agency’s social media accounts. Congrats. Your Twitter account might get a few more followers, but you want more than that, right? The truth is that it takes more than hiring digital natives to make your agency digitally savvy. Don’t get me wrong — hiring fresh, young (and less expensive) employees can add tremendous value to your team. But a lot of agencies only have one or two people managing the company’s entire digital presence; many times, those employees are younger and not fully up to speed on your overarching strategy. Your agency’s veteran staffers are the ones who understand the core business and how to think strategically. To reap the full benefits of digital tools, you need to make sure everyone in your shop is comfortable in the ever-evolving digital landscape. Not sure you can get your more experienced employees to work alongside the young digital natives on your staff? That’s where a talented teacher might come in handy. What a Digital Teacher Can Do for You Hiring a qualified teacher to make sure all of your employees understand online platforms is a great way to get everyone on board. The 35-year veteran who hates the idea of Facebook can hardly argue with learning new digital strategies if everyone else (including the boss) is getting that same training, can he? Great teachers will, of course, have their own methods, but here are a few things they should do: Develop individualized plans for each employee to identify gaps in his knowledge base and provide training to fill those gaps. Partner junior employees with veteran mentors so younger employees can become more familiar with the nuances [...]