Since the advent of COVID-19, workforces everywhere have been dispersed out of central office locations, and into the work from home-type environments that have become more commonplace today. This dispersion has been an underlying driver for organizations to migrate their systems and data into the cloud, but what are the best practices that you should keep in mind when doing so?
Investing in a variety of high-quality skill-building opportunities, along with driving engagement to those offerings, can help your company improve performance in key metrics and effectively work toward your digital transformation goals.
Growing Need for Cloud Solutions Presents New Challenges
In recent years, the need for cloud solutions has spiked. In fact, according to Aberdeen Strategy & Research data, 95%of companies believe it is important for digital transformation that the workforce is skilled and knowledgeable with cloud capabilities.
Shifting your workforce into the cloud provides many benefits, such as increased business agility, improved flexibility, and reduced costs. By migrating workloads and applications to the cloud, many organizations are facing a new challenge: the need for qualified cloud experts. These experts must know how to work effectively with cloud services and solutions to ensure that new capabilities deliver business value and bottom-line results.
It’s not enough to hire practitioners versed in deploying and maintaining the stack—you need all your technical teams to be able to develop, deploy, run, and scale virtually any application securely in the cloud. In addition, you need a broad set of foundational cloud skills across the organization, enabling teams to communicate effectively and innovate faster.
Invest in Cloud Skills Enablement Programs
After developing a skills enablement plan or selecting a training and certification partner, utilize strategic workforce planning and career motivators to drive employee participation. The idea is to do more than just provide classes or training materials, but rather to build skills development into long-term strategic workforce planning with respect to how you develop your employees. It’s also prudent to nurture communities of like-minded skill workers to enrich learning experiences. These actions can establish a true culture of continuous learning within the organization — instilling a growth mindset in employees, which can lead to improvements in morale and retention, and can motivate employees to progress in their careers. For that matter, Aberdeen Strategy & Research data shows that the top driver for organizations to invest in cloud learning and development is the need to improve employee retention and attracting top talent, with 23% of all companies indicating as such.
Regular assessments of career paths and evaluation of the steps required to fill the skills gaps, promote continuous development and learning within the organization. With managers pushing content and encouraging employees to better themselves, companies are strengthening their workforce as a whole and staying on top of new cloud trends. The more cloud knowledge employees are able to retain, the more productive they can be in their roles.
Include Cloud Skills Development in Your Long-Term Planning
Developing the cloud skills of your workforce over time requires more than just providing classes or training materials. Organizations need to build skills development into their long-term strategic workforce planning with respect to how they develop their employees. It’s important to nurture communities of like-minded skill workers to enrich learning experiences. These actions can establish a true culture of continuous learning within an organization — instilling a growth mindset in employees, which can lead to improvements in morale and retention, and can motivate employees to progress in their careers.
Cloud skills enablement programs expand versatility and demonstrate employee appreciation, which affects employee tenure and retention. As IT personnel develop new skills, they may look to step into new roles within the company that invested in their growth rather than transition to another firm. Employee appreciation can translate to greater employee satisfaction and an increased likelihood of loyalty to the company.
These improvements in productivity and efficiency as well as employee retention contribute to overall revenue per full-time employee (FTE) and success of the company. Companies should establish a plan for reaching top levels of performance by investing in high-quality, comprehensive cloud skills enablement programs.
Keeping Up with the Pace of Innovation
As cloud technology continues to advance and employees are required to keep up with the pace of innovation, cloud skills enablement programs are a must. To develop and deliver these programs, organizations need to choose the right process and partner that fit their unique needs and business objectives. Strong workforce development programs build highly skilled employees that are prepared to take on new responsibilities through the digital transformation and are ready to thrive in the rapidly transforming business environment.
