The evolution of the digital workplace has impacted many job functions, but none more so than IT. The technology that runs the modern workplace has grown more layered and complex, and IT professionals are the ones tasked with deploying and managing these essential tools. But they need the skills necessary to do so, and that’s where many IT organizations are struggling — and it’s why IT upskilling has become a critical priority.
If you’re wondering why IT skill development is so important — and how you can promote IT upskilling more effectively within your organization — this post is for you. Keep reading for a comprehensive guide to upskilling for IT professionals.
What is IT upskilling?
IT upskilling is the process of training and developing IT employees to improve their existing skill sets or learn new ones that are necessary for their changing job functions.
This process involves targeted education designed to teach IT professionals skills related to technologies and strategies that have grown in significance over recent years, including automation, cloud computing, and AI.
Effective IT upskilling helps service professionals to become more effective and productive, gain experience that is more valuable in the current IT landscape, and work their way towards new career opportunities, either internally or externally.
Learn about the new skills and roles that are transforming IT teams in the following posts:
- 6 Emerging Job Titles Shaping Tomorrow’s IT Teams
- What Skills Do Today’s IT Pros Need to Succeed? An IT Leader’s Advice
Why is IT upskilling important?
Upskilling IT professionals is obviously beneficial to the employees themselves, as it helps them keep pace with the rapidly evolving industry and make themselves more valuable to their current and future employers. But there are several reasons why upskilling also provides benefits to the business at large:
1. Upskilling presents a solution to the growing talent gap in the IT hiring market.
Even in the face of economic uncertainty, companies are looking to hire for new IT professionals at an unprecedented rate — as they must expand their teams and fill new positions related to the technology investments they’ve made over the past several years.
However, these companies are struggling to locate and hire suitable candidates for the new positions they’ve created. A new report indicates that more than 100,000 jobs for experienced IT pros remain unfilled in the U.S.
Failing to fill essential IT roles costs organizations money, stretches their existing resources thin, and hinders their ability to accelerate their transformation projects. By upskilling current employees, IT departments become more agile and are able to achieve new priorities without turning to an unreliable hiring market.
2. Upskilling is more cost-effective than hiring new employees.
Hiring new IT employees is not only difficult in today’s job market — it’s also expensive.
Upskilling presents a more cost-effective method to gain the new skill sets your IT department needs. Studies show that, in the IT field specifically, the cost of training an existing employee for a role is 83% less than the cost of hiring a new employee to perform the same tasks.
3. Upskilling improves employee retention.
The cost and difficulty of navigating the current IT hiring market makes one thing clear: retaining employees is more important than ever. And as the following statistics prove, upskilling is one of the most effective ways to keep your best IT workers engaged, satisfied, and committed to staying with your organization:
- 83% of workers say that improving their skills is their number-one priority in 2023.
- 74% of employees are willing to leave their current job due to a lack of skill-building and career-mobility opportunities.
Upskilling vs. Reskilling
While the terms upskilling and reskilling are often used interchangeably, they refer to two distinct processes of employee development. Upskilling involves improving an employee’s skills to help them perform their job more effectively, or to perform new tasks that align with the team’s evolving priorities.
Reskilling, on the other hand, involves teaching an employee an entirely different set of skills for an entirely different job function. For example, upskilling might involving teaching a service desk engineer a new programming language, while reskilling might involve teaching them to become a cybersecurity analyst.
Examples of IT Upskilling
To explore examples of IT upskilling, let’s look at two of the biggest developments that have occurred in recent years: the evolution of cloud computing and the growing importance of digital employee experience management.
Cloud computing has continued to rise both in adoption and scope, with Gartner predicting that worldwide spending will grow 20.7% in 2023 to total $591.8 billion. A business that wants to adopt cloud-based technology to improve their efficiency and flexibility might need to upskill members of their existing IT department. Training workers in cloud infrastructure, cloud storage, and cloud security enables them to support this major innovation project and ensure its success.
Likewise, digital employee experience management has evolved from a nice-to-have to an essential priority for modern businesses. In a recent Career Capital report, we learned that DEX-specific roles are in increasingly high demand.
Companies who develop employees in DEX initiatives — from personalized IT to XLA design to employee sentiment analysis — will have a major advantage over their competition as DEX-driven IT teams become the norm.
5 Tips for Upskilling Your IT Employees
Now that we’ve established the importance of upskilling and how it can benefit both employees and employers, let’s explore some practical tips for upskilling your IT workforce.
1. Identify skill gaps.
Your IT upskilling program first relies on your ability to identify the specific skills your team is lacking and needs to develop. First: assess the skills and core competencies that make up your team today. What priorities and strategies is your team currently fulfilling? In what areas do each of your IT team members excel? Where do they struggle?
Next, look ahead to the next five years. What IT activities do you foresee your team needing to do more of? What new technologies and strategies will your team need to adopt or use in a different way? What skills are required to achieve these new priorities, and how do they compare to the skills your team already has?
By answering these questions, you’ll recognize the specific skills that you’ll need to promote through your upskilling initiatives.
2. Secure executive buy-in.
Upskilling employees requires a significant investment of time and resources, especially when it comes to IT professionals who may be learning how to interact with and manage highly complex technologies and systems. So, it’s essential to secure executive support in your upskilling initiatives so that the company views them as a priority and is willing to provide any necessary resources.
Make a business case for your upskilling program, highlighting the potential benefits to the organization such as increased productivity, reduced turnover, and the higher ROI of upskilling compared to hiring new workers. When executives understand that upskilling doesn’t just help workers but can make a long-term positive impact on the company’s bottom line, it won’t be difficult to get them on board.
3. Provide a clear career roadmap for upskilled employees.
Just like you need to secure executive support, it’s also important that your IT team members understand the value of being part of an upskilling program. You won’t encourage and inspire them to learn new skills simply by saying: “We’re going to be using this new technology, so we have to make sure you learn how to use it as soon as possible.”
Instead, be specific and communicate the ways in which learning new skills will improve IT employees’ career trajectories. Provide a clear path for them to advance and earn more opportunities, including promotion and potential leadership opportunities, once they’ve developed and proven the new skills they’re going to be working on.
This method applies to employees who need more hands-on guidance as well as those who have vocalized an eagerness to learn a specific new IT skill. If someone expresses an interest in becoming more adept at engineering AI, for example, you should encourage this development — and also express the unique career paths that the employee can follow as they improve in their AI engineering abilities.
4. Explore training and certification programs.
IT upskilling presents more challenges than skill development programs for other job functions. Many of the most cutting-edge IT initiatives involve uniquely complex and relatively new technology — and not every manager is going to be an expert in each one, capable of fully educating employees on the subtle intricacies of cloud computing, machine learning, DEX management, and so on.
Fortunately, there are many external sources of education that your employees can leverage to develop new IT skills. Do some research into the most popular certification programs and identify the ones that align with your organization’s needs, as well as the skill gaps you’ve identified. Communicate the value of these programs to your leadership team so they understand exactly what their investments will earn the business in the long term.
5. Track and manage progress.
Upskilling isn’t just about encouraging employees and offering them support on their education journeys. Your upskilling initiative will only be successful is you treat it as a legitimate business program. Establish clear goals and objectives, including timelines and milestones that your employees should strive for.
Regularly review progress and adjust your upskilling strategy as necessary. Collect feedback from your employees, identify struggle points, and address their evolving needs and concerns to ensure that they’re engaged and motivated throughout their upskilling journey.
The DEX Management Certification: Upskilling for DEX-Driven IT Organizations
If you want a head start on your upskilling strategy, we strongly recommend you explore the DEX Management Certification program!
This free certification program teaches IT professionals the core tenets of Digital Employee Experience (DEX) management, giving them the skills they need to proactively improve your digital workplace and increase the value of IT to your business. The DEX Management Certification Modules include:
- Setting a DEX Baseline: Build a Roadmap for Business Value
- XLA Strategy and Survey Design: Design Better Employee Surveys
- Building a Tailored IT Experience: Customize DEX at Scale
- The DEX Ops Team: Create a Team that Drives Value
