Governments' Need for Digitization Skills: Understanding and Shaping Vocational Training in the Public Sector

This article describes how while confronted with digitization, governments need to equip their employees with skills for dealing with the upcoming technologies. To date, however, there has been no thorough analysis of which skills governments actually require and how these skills are addressed by (vocational) training. Therefore, the aim of this article is to understand both governments' needs and the scope of currently offered training as well as identifying the existing gaps by conducting qualitative interviews with employees from HR departments in governments. An understanding of what skills are actually required in public bodies and how they can be classified will be outlined. Furthermore, the challenges and benefits of governments' decision to offer vocational training are investigated, pointing out gaps that need further investigation. Based on this, implications for theory and practice for the digitization future and vocational trainings in government are derived.