The world of IT has changed immensely since I started my career, and its rapid evolution is showing no signs of slowing down. As a result, new professionals are entering IT roles in which their primary responsibilities bear very few similarities to the traditional IT jobs of decades past.
This radically different landscape has caused IT professionals – new and tenured alike – to wonder: what are the most important skills needed for success now?
In my view, the answer to this question isn’t that IT professionals need to be experts in artificial intelligence, data analytics, coding, cloud technology, or any one trend that we see dominating the industry headlines. The most important skill a modern IT employee can have is adaptability.
Considering the constant emergence of new technology and IT trends, flexibility and the drive for continuous learning are no longer “nice-to-have” soft skills – they’re essential qualities that will help an employee get ahead and set apart any job candidate. More than ever, starting a career in technology means you must be curious, open-minded and willing to embrace change. You must be able to remove yourself from the day-to-day and continuously look forward.
In today’s digital workplaces, IT pros need to be security- and strategy-minded.
IT professionals who started just three years ago are working in a vastly different IT environment today than when they started. Years ago, IT was focused largely on day-to-day support: addressing tickets and reacting to the technology problems that employees reported as efficiently as possible. They rarely looked beyond the granular details of their responsibilities – because they rarely had the bandwidth or encouragement to think bigger-picture.
These core responsibilities have dramatically changed, in part due to technology and largely due to the evolution of the workplace. With the push to remote and hybrid work, IT needed to shift its focus to meet the needs of each employee, wherever they worked.
Meanwhile, the rapid development of automation meant that IT teams could automate tasks they used to perform manually – from troubleshooting to data entry and much in between. That meant they had more time to focus on proactive digital support – but it also meant they could spend more time thoughtfully considering the priorities needed to improve this new-look workplace.
Two of those priorities – and I’d argue the most essential ones for young IT professionals to consider – are organizational security and organizational strategy.
Organizational Security
As the workforce dispersed into remote environments, the risk of security threats increased. Moving devices from a few central networks to hundreds or thousands of remote offices opened the door to new threats that IT teams needed to consider and plan for.
And though they’ve adjusted their approaches in the years since the pandemic began, it remains true that the future workplace is more complex, with more technologies and more places from which employees will access those technologies. So, with every initiative their team undergoes, IT pros need to ask the question:
“Does this increase our risk of sensitive information being exposed? Are there additional controls we need to put in place – and what impact will they have on the end user’s productivity and experience of IT services?”
Understanding what security threats are possible, educating employees on best cybersecurity practices, and being able to visualize device and application health and vulnerabilities have all become essential parts of any IT job.
Organizational Strategy
When considering these new risk factors and what technology needs to be put in place, IT professionals need to take a holistic view of all the tools and technology employees are using.
They must be capable of much more than deploying and then troubleshooting technology – they should know how to measure technology performance continuously, engage with employees to understand how they’re using those tools, and make changes based on this data improving productivity and efficiency.
A recent report found that 53.5% of employees use between 11-25 applications every day to be fully productive. Yet only 5% of IT leaders have complete visibility into the total number of employees that adopt and use company-approved applications. This means organizations are spending money on hundreds of application licenses for employees and have no visibility on how they are being used.
When you consider the number of applications the average business uses – and the cost of each application – you understand why IT strategy has become fundamental to business strategy. When IT professionals have the skills to analyze application usage and recognize opportunities for cost savings, they make themselves essential value-drivers for their business.
Modern IT professionals must become strategic assets to their organizations.
IT teams have always been an important asset to the work environment, but as technology, work style and employee needs evolve, so have the responsibilities and priorities of the IT team.
It’s no exaggeration to say that IT has the ability to make or break an employee’s work experience. In fact, 76% of IT professionals believe that poor/unreliable IT services & equipment play a significant role in employee burnout or employee turnover.
This systemic change to IT’s core priorities calls for new skills and mindsets across the IT field, from entry-level workers to department leaders. Young IT pros need to be armed with skills and knowledge of cybersecurity, cloud solutions, automation and much more – but above all else, they need a keen eye for how their work impacts each employee’s digital experience.
My greatest advice to anyone looking to begin their career in technology is this: make yourself a strategic asset to your employer. Show an eye for the big-picture and identify areas that will help your IT team drive value for your business. Keep developing your skills, learning from the people around you, and always look beyond the issues at hand.
