Organisations need to make sure that digital skills, knowledge and behaviour are part of everyone’s job. This doesn’t mean that everyone in the organisation needs to be a social media whizz. People need to have digital capabilities that are relevant to their specific job. For example:

  • A supporter care manager may need to have the skills to talk to supporters on social media.
  • A marketing or fundraising officer may need to be able to design and manage an email campaign.
  • A campaigner may need to know how to create online journeys and manage online actions.

HR teams need to understand the importance of digital skills. And recruitment processes must take digital into account.

Salary grades can be an obstacle for recruiting digital talent. Grades need to keep pace with the digital shift in the job market. Otherwise, it can be difficult to attract the right people.

Digital capacity can be developed through the recruitment of new people or through staff development and training.

Things to think about

  • Are digital capabilities (skills, attitudes and behaviours) required for all roles?
  • Is your digital lead involved in the creation of job descriptions or the recruitment of roles in other teams?
  • Does your HR team have digital recruitment expertise?

Recruitment: five levels of maturity

1. Essential

There’s a focus on technical skills for the role looking after the website.

2. Specialist

Specialist digital skills are included in certain roles that support engagement.

3. Generalist

Broad digital skills are required for jobs all around the organisation.

4. Prevalent

Strategic digital skills are standardly included in job descriptions.

5. Pervasive

New recruits are all digitally capable. All job descriptions include relevant digital skills.

Average score

Overall, for this competency, organisations average out at level 2.5.

Scores by year

These graphs show the average scores for this competency over the last few years, expressed as a percentage.

  • 2020 54% 54%
  • 2019 52% 52%
  • 2018 48% 48%
  • 2017 46% 46%
  • 2016 36% 36%