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🎒 Microlesson

🪞 Reflect

What digital tools do you use every day at work? When was the last time you dedicated some time and focus to learning how to use them well?

💡 Concept

For remote workers, the tools, apps, and platforms we use to complete our work are our digital workplaces—and those digital workplaces are getting more crowded! Every day, new digital tools enter the market to help improve productivity, communication, engagement, and every other metric that modern businesses care about.

As a professional who relies on technology to complete your work, you can expect your tool stack to experience many changes throughout your career. Having digital tool fluency will enable you to quickly adapt to those changes without disrupting your productivity.

Being digitally fluent means:

• Understanding a tool’s purpose, capabilities, limitations, as well as how it supports your business’s processes and objectives

• Using technology correctly and effectively

• Adapting quickly to new tools, interfaces, and features

• Applying technology appropriately to different situations and contexts

• Evaluating tool effectiveness

• Integrating tools into existing processes

• Optimizing workflows

• Troubleshooting and solving problems

Anyone (leaders, individual contributors, freelancers) can improve digital tool fluency by investing time in exploring their current tech stack. Are there features you don’t regularly use? Is there new functionality? Does your organization or the tool vendor provide instructional content so you can sharpen your skills? Can you connect with tool “superusers” for inspiration?

🎬 Take Action

Here are a few steps you can take to improve your digital tool fluency:

• Block time on your schedule to learn about any new features for the tools you use most frequently .

• Document troubleshooting steps you’ve taken to solve any recurring problems with the tools you use.

• Take advantage of any training materials that the tools offer to learn a new skill.

• Connect with a tool superuser on your team to learn new tips.

• Create a channel or repository for team-submitted technology tips.

• If you’re a leader, provide resources (time, training, etc.) to team members to develop their own digital tool fluency. You might forward them this microlesson to get them started.

📄 Additional Resources

Upskilling for the Age of Workplace Flexibility

✅ Check In

🧠 Keep Learning

There are so many tool-specific learning opportunities out there! Try searching on YouTube, LinkedIn Learning, or Udemy for courses on tools you use.

🎁 Learn with your team!

Refer our weekly microlessons to your team members to learn as a group! Just follow the instructions in the section below to get started.