Recently launched by Asia Pacific Finance, the Digital Gym is the latest demonstration of our broad-based commitment to advancing digital capabilities—along with a culture of learning and development—at Johnson & Johnson.
“‘Get Fit, Get Digital’ is the tagline,” Leon explained, "because just as a gym is a place where you train your muscles, we envisioned this as a place where you train your digital muscles, digital skills, expertise and competencies."
And with good reason: Process automation. Cloud computing. Data analytics. Visualization. New digital technologies seem to come along every other day at this point.
Leon went on, "This was our way of answering the question: 'How do we leverage all of these really cool, really advanced technologies we have access to in a way that contributes more value to the business?'"
How indeed?
First Things First: Building the Gym
Fittingly, Leon's team approached the initial challenge—building the Digital Gym—as a learning and development exercise in and of itself.
And the word "team" in the above is key.
"It really was a huge team effort," Leon emphasized. "We empowered young talent on our team to take this on and build the Digital Gym essentially from scratch."
But what "muscle groups"—meaning skill sets or competencies—should they target?
After some debate, the team ultimately landed on four:
- Intelligent automation: Leveraging the latest and greatest tech, including AI and robotic process automation (RPA), to speed up business processes from end to end
- Data visualization and storytelling: Applying new technologies to more effectively communicate with stakeholders and partners
- Descriptive and diagnostic analytics: Tools to help answer business-critical questions like "What happened?" and "Why did it happen?"
- Advanced analytics: Forecasting tools that can help leaders prepare for future scenarios and make more informed decisions today
Pillars aside, what would happen when the action kicked off and the exercises began?
Three Levels of Digital Fitness
In Leon's view, your typical digital gymnast at Johnson & Johnson today is progressing through one of the following three levels of fitness:
- Level one: "You're building a digital mindset, but you're also just embarking on your digital journey," he said.
- Level two: At this point, in Leon's words, "the question becomes 'How do I apply these new skills to my work?'" And to that end, the Digital Gym comes with workshops, live trainings, an extensive library of online courses and other resources designed specifically to help you figure that out.
- Level three: In this final stage, you emerge "as a subject-matter expert," Leon said. "You can communicate best practices. You can troubleshoot. And you can educate colleagues who aren't as far along in their digital journeys."
What's in a Name?
"I think the first name someone proposed for this initiative was just 'Digital Finance,' or something like that—which seemed so lame to me," Leon recalled, laughing.
Hence “Digital Gym." And so far, so good.
"We're seeing hundreds of people attending our Digital Gym trainings," Leon said. "The responses, and the levels of engagement we're seeing, have been truly amazing."
Our Digital Gym is part of the efforts we're making to be a change-ready organization. By equipping our employees with tools and training, we're building resilience to be able to adapt while also creating a digital community. Having a digital mindset allows us to evolve as a company—and be ready to evolve with new technology, too.
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Ready to "Get Fit, Get Digital"?
We want everyone on our team to feel, be and do their best every single day at Johnson & Johnson, and you'll see that reflected in myriad ways across our company. It's why we've developed best-in-class learning platforms, for example. Why our data scientists are mapping career pathways to unlock human potential. And why we empower our employees with resources like the Human Performance Institute (HPI), which brings together principles of energy management with principles of leadership.
So if you're ready to "Get Fit, Get Digital"—the tagline of our Digital Gym—check out all of the roles we're hiring for right now. Plus, be sure to sign up for our Global Talent Hub, too. It's a great way to stay in touch, learn more about life at our company and even get updates about jobs that might interest you in the future.