The digital industry is growing at lightning speed, but it is no secret that Australia is on the backfoot when it comes to digital talent. A reported 200,000 tech workers are needed within the next four years, if we plan to be a world leading digital economy.

While there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to setting your company up for digital success, there are commonalities among the businesses doing it effectively, as well as invaluable incentive to move digital strategy to the top of your priority pile; with recent research from ntegrity revealing there is a clear correlation between digital success and year-on-year revenue growth.

1 Centralise Strategy and Communicate Insights

It cannot be emphasised enough that digital strategy should be at the centre of everything you do as a company.

An important thing to remember when assessing investment into new digital platforms and technologies, is to continually come back to your well-defined, long-term strategy and evaluate if your next move is nicely aligned or pulling you in the wrong direction.

This keeps strategy effective, relevant and front-of-mind.

ntegrity’s latest data shows that the single biggest issue facing Australian companies is attracting digital talent from the onset – in other words, once you find them, you have to hold onto them. The highest-performing companies do not just rely on perks, flexibility and a positive culture to keep talent around, but they invest in training.

This does not mean having staff complete superficial online training courses, but encouraging them to attend key conferences, facilitating customised team training and importantly, providing quality, one-to-one development opportunities.

If training is not genuinely encouraged and supported, your team will feel overwhelmed as they try to keep up with the pace of change in the digital sector, and this can often lead to digital talent moving into non-digital positions at other companies. Put simply, when you invest in training for your digital employees, you extend their career aspirations at your company.

In short, Australian businesses need to invest in people, not perks, as retaining high performers is critical to digital success and will pay off in spades. Industry is moving faster than formal training, so the smartest way to retain digital talent is to nurture your own.