These elements have a diverse heritage in learning and management theory, and the way they are implemented will vary from one organization to another. Most or all of them are present, we believe, in every successful effort to raise the caliber of digital skills in an organization. When an initiative is designed effectively, the elements complement one another. Together, these elements create an immersive workplace environment that makes it easy to build new habits and learn new skills, continually reminding people of the progress they've made and the learning yet to come. Just as learning a new language is easier if you move to a community where it is constantly spoken, learning digital proficiency is easier if you are surrounded by other people who are fluent with the relevant technologies. But such widespread fluency is not the situation in businesses today. Training Industry, an organization and information source devoted to "the business of learning," estimates that organizations spent more than $362 billion on employee training and education in 2018 alone, reflecting a growth rate of 1.2 percent per year. Yet as Harvard Business School professor Michael Beer had already pointed out in 2016 in Harvard Business Review, organizations "are not getting a good return on their investment.

In 1888, the London-based accounting firm that became PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) faced a major technological upheaval thanks to the Burroughs adding machine. The first-ever mechanized calculator, an invention by William Seward Burroughs, cut the time to perform accounting tasks in half, and PwC's hundreds of workers had to quickly master the new system, or get left in the dust. Today, PwC isn't simply an accounting firm--now it's a global consultancy with 250,930 employees in 158 countries, raking in $43.1 billion in revenue in 2018--but once again it, along with thousands of other companies, faces a seismic technological shakeup with the advent of AI and other advanced technologies. It's rising to meet the challenge by preparing its workers to use digital technologies at all levels, from entry-level staff to C-suite executives. And it's not alone in its reskilling push--AT&T, IBM, Walmart and other forward-leaning companies also have major retraining programs underway.