Growing Australia’s digital workforce

Pilot helps queensland employees build their digital skills

Improving training delivery

Employees at Queensland’s (then) Department of Employment, Small Business and Training (DESBT) wanted to take their digital skills to the next level.

They were already digitally literate but wanted to advance their digital skills so they could use technology to better help people across Queensland.

To achieve this, in 2022 the department partnered with the DSO to run an advanced digital skills pilot for regional teams working in service delivery and customer care.

The employees used self-assessment tools to figure out what digital skills they needed to work on and then did tailored online training to improve those skills. All the digital skills were based on the DSO’s Skill Standards, which align to employer needs.

The training gave DESBT employees the extra digital skills needed to help them do their jobs better and set them up for career progression.

“The Digital Fluency Pilot has broadened my IT skills and given me confidence to help others with different applications including Teams, and general technical issues. The pilot helped me to increase my Digital Fluency through enhancing my knowledge and understanding of the bigger picture of how technology can play a bigger role across all aspects of my life.”

Alison Low (Participant and Acting Field Officer,
Metropolitan Region)

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About the Digital Skills Organisation

The Digital Skills Organisation (DSO) was established in 2020 by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR; formerly Department of Education, Skills and Employment) as one of three industry-led Skills Organisation Pilots, alongside Human Services and Mining.

Its establishment was as a result of the Australian Government’s ‘Strengthening Skills: Expert Review of Australia’s Vocational Education and Training System’ 2019 report. This recognised emerging evidence of a growing supply and demand gap for workers with digital skills, and system barriers to closing this gap.

DEWR described DSO’s remit to “shape the national training system, testing innovative solutions to ensure digital training meets the skills needs of employers and builds Australia’s digital workforce”.

The funding period was for three years to June 2023. Subsequently, the introduction of ten Jobs and Skills Councils (JSCs) from June 2023 provides the opportunity to consider how learnings from the DSO trials can inform work priorities for the Finance, Technology and Business (FTB) JSC.

Acknowledgements

The DSO acknowledges the collaboration and input to the work of the DSO of the Tech Council of Australia (TCA), Australian Computer Society (ACS), Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), Digital Employment Forum (DEF), VET (Vocational Education and Training) peak associations, including the TAFE Working Group, the Australian Government departments and agencies, state and territory governments, training providers, community groups and schools. The DSO also acknowledges the range of organisations and individuals who have contributed to, or participated in, the trials undertaken as part of the DSO’s work.

About this report

This report is a contribution to fulfilling the DSO’s remit. Specifically, it seeks to:

Define Australia’s current and future digital skilling needs, including assessing supply and demand gaps
Synthesise the activities and progress the DSO has made to address Australia’s digital skilling needs, and the potential to close the skilling gap
Identify opportunities for the JSC for FTB to continue collaboration with governments, industry, unions, registered training organisations, community groups and the other nine JSCs to progress Australia’s national approach to digital skilling.

The report draws on a range of quantitative and qualitative research and analytics inputs. This includes workforce and skills data insights, analysis of data from the training sector, insights from industry engagement, and evaluation of DSO trials.

Further information about the technical elements of the method is included in Appendix A.