Overcoming today’s digital talent gap in organizations worldwide

Purpose This paper aims to determine why organizations struggle in implementing digital transformation to obtain a faster return on investment and how human resource management can help organizations overcome this challenge. Design/methodology/approach To examine recent research and opinions of industry experts on digital transformation by organizations and the major challenges they face, this study applies an inductive qualitative research approach and uses a descriptive statistics method to analyze the responses. Findings This paper reveals the various challenges organizations face today in implementing digital transformation because of gaps in digital talent in the current workforce. Practical implications This paper provides recommendations to HR practitioners and leadership teams in organizations on how to narrow the gap in current digital talent to successfully implement digital transformation and increase productivity. Social implications This study highlights the need for the current workforce to acquire the necessary digital talent sought by organizations and how improving their digital capabilities can improve their productivity in today’s digital scenario. Originality/value This study focuses on current problems organizations worldwide face in implementing digital transformation. The digital talent gap is increasing daily with the development of new AI, Big Data and other digital technologies. Hence, it is important for human resource departments and leaders to quickly address and resolve digital talent gaps to realize the advantages of digital transformation and a return on their heavy investment.