Help Your Business Join the Digital Age with Google’s New Training and Scholarships

“Small businesses are at the heart of our economy – creating jobs and prosperity across the UK…” said Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer. As the pandemic has gone on, those same small businesses have increased their opportunities through the use of digital tools.

Enter Google, as of May 9th, the corporate giant is now offering small businesses new opportunities to train their employees in essential and high-demand skills.

The multinational company has also begun implementing a new scholarship programme to provide more aid for employee training through Google’s Career Certificates.

Discover next how your business can take advantage of these new training possibilities to fully enter the digital era.

A new addition to Google Career Certificates

First, a Google Career Certificate is a certificate that individuals can obtain after going through an online course on Coursera, a global online learning platform that hosts Google’s Certificates

The courses don’t require any prior experience and can be completed at an individual pace. They can help employees stand out to employers, but of course, come with a cost in the form of a monthly subscription to Coursera (or even free through Google’s new scholarship programme).

According to the American multinational, Google explains that:

“…60% of SME leaders say they need more support to help adapt to the permanent changes brought about over the past two years.

Over a third (35%) of SMEs say they have changed their business radically, and 63% say that digital skills and tools are now more important than they were pre-pandemic, as they look to grow in a hybrid and more digitally mature world.

In spite of that, a majority of SME leaders find that it’s harder now to recruit staff with the right digital skills.”

With this in mind, Google has launched a new Digital Marketing & E-commerce Certificate that focuses on finding customers, building an online store, measurement and analytics, and increasing customer loyalty, through tools such as Canva, HubSpot, MailChimp, Shopify, Google Analytics, and more.

Employees learn key skills through Google’s scholarship programme and the in-person Google Digital Garage

Google has introduced a new programme that will work alongside the Federation of Small Businesses to offer up to 500 Google Career Certificates Scholarships for SMEs to provide employee training.

Google mentions that it offers high value for workforce training, stating that:

“Businesses can use Google Career Certificates to train their employees for jobs in data analytics, digital marketing & e-commerce, IT support, project management or user experience (UX) design. […] For every scholarship we give, a business will be gaining capabilities and, at the same time, an employee will be growing new skills.”

Beyond that, according to Google, their “Digital Garage team will be visiting towns and cities nationwide, making stops in places like Leeds, Lincolnshire, Salisbury and Glasgow, to teach small businesses and individuals digital skills that can help them maximize their potential.”

Is your business planning on taking advantage of this programme in 2022?