The FutureDotNow coalition brings together organisations that want to work together to accelerate the digital upskilling of their employees, customers and wider community.
We help businesses understand the issue, build collective action and drive change.
As a powerful collective brand, FutureDotNow can have an exponentially greater reach, influence and impact. Shared ownership of the digital skills challenge gives us greater insight and maximises the reach and power of solutions. Through our members’ employees, customers, and supply chains we have a reach of millions; and together we can have an exponential impact on closing the UK’s digital skills gap.
It’s free to join and there are no fees. Here’s a breakdown of the benefits that being part of the coalition brings, as well as what we ask in return.
Membership benefits
1. Making the case
You’ll get access to information, resources and data that will help you:
- define the digital skills issue, the challenges it presents for your business, and what can be done to address them
- bring the digital skills crisis to life, informing sector-specific business cases
- engage senior leaders and advocate for action internally
2. Learning from others
As part of a coalition of businesses at different stages of their digital upskilling journey, you will:
- hear regularly from organisations that are leading the way on the issue, as they share insights and showcase best-in-class programmes
- have the opportunity to connect with other members, across sectors and within your own, so you can learn from others on the same journey
- gain access to current research and thinking on digital upskilling from member experts such as Lloyds Banking Group, Microsoft and more.
3. Building your programme
Through our shared expertise on the digital skills crisis facing industry, you will gain access to:
- tools and approaches for each step of your digital skills journey, from identifying your starting point to scaling and measuring impact
- opportunities to co-create new solutions with other members
- help to scale initiatives at speed, adopting tried and tested methodologies
The pledge
We want every member of the coalition to believe in the vital importance of accelerating the UK’s digital skills. We want you to be part of an action-centered community that’s developing, sharing and implementing best practice to get working-age adults across the UK ready to thrive in our increasingly digital world. We believe that by taking positive collective action to equip people with the Essential Digital Skills, we can create a thriving, economically prosperous digital society.
To help us do so, every organisation in the FutureDotNow community make four commitments:
Leverage the common language and framework of Essential Digital Skills
We ask all members to leverage the framework across their business to help understand the skills their organisation requires and/or provides and, ultimately, help people build Essential Digital Skills.
The Essential Digital Skills Framework sets the standards and terminology for 20 essential digital tasks necessary for work today. It’s an excellent resource every business can use. It creates clarity and simplicity and provides a common language and specific skill definitions.
Assess the Essential Digital Skills of your workforce
We ask all businesses to assess the current digital capability and confidence levels of their workforce, or that of the organisations they support.
Many businesses are not aware of the true size of the Essential Digital Skills gap present in their organisation and the impact it may be having. Whether you’re looking to get an indicative view or one specific to your business, there are lots of resources available to our members.
Help your workforce to build the Essential Digital Skills for Work
We ask all businesses to actively help people grow their core digital skills and ensure they can do at least the 20 work tasks outlined in the Essential Digital Skills Framework.
Our work with members has shown that there are many different ways businesses can help people upskill – from Marks & Spencer embarking on a ‘big bang’ culture shift to Nationwide working with an external skills provider as a learning partner. Read about these and more approaches to digital upskilling.