Employees' Digital Competency Development in the Construction and Automotive Industrial Sectors

Abstract

Nowadays, many companies make a great deal of effort to take full advantage of digital transformation and stay ahead of their competitors. The influence of digitalisation on manpower development and human capabilities as well as on the business environment, in general, is especially noticeable in the construction and automotive sectors. That is why the main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of new digital technologies on employee competency development in Czech construction and automotive companies. The quantitative methodology is based on primary data collection conducted from July through October 2020 using the CAWI method. As a result, 27 responses from Czech construction companies and 39 responses from Czech automotive companies have been gathered in Survio software, processed and analysed by using descriptive statistics and Pearson’s chi-square test of independence. The qualitative data analysis applied in this paper includes three semi-structured interviews with human resource managers of selected Czech companies in the automotive industry. The advantages and disadvantages of the Covid-19 pandemic situation from the point of view of human resource management and employee training have also been analysed in the presented case study. The findings in this paper confirm that creating a digitally ready workforce and changing the employees’ mindset towards the new style of doing their jobs remain significant challenges to deal with in the Czech construction and automotive industries. Implications for Central European audience: This paper focuses primarily on the training and professional development of people employed in the construction and automotive sectors, which have been highly affected by the ongoing digitalisation of business and the current Covid-19 pandemic situation. As the results further demonstrate, the widespread use of digital technologies can definitely help to enhance employees’ digital competencies. However, the employees still have to get used to a digitalised workplace. In such conditions, the role of human resource managers is key in the implementation of continuous training as part of the corporate culture. © 2022, Central European Business Review. All Rights Reserved.