5 Ways to Address the Cloud Skill Shortage

Cloud technology has grown exponentially in recent years, fueled by the shift to remote working and the increased need for off-site storage and support during the pandemic. However, as adoption grows, 87% of executive leaders are experiencing a skill gap within their workforce or are expecting within a few years, according to a McKinsey Global Survey.  

While cloud deployments have become a top priority for businesses undergoing digital transformation, a lack of cloud skills remains the greatest barrier to adopting emerging, cloud-based technologies such as machine learning, databases, and others. Amidst this backdrop, building a skilled workforce to meet evolving job roles is paramount for organizations of all sizes today. Leading companies like Google are investing in training more than 40 million people in the cloud to address the widening Cloud IT skills gap and help businesses implement cloud-based solutions efficiently.  

Businesses are dealing with a slew of talent issues, including accelerated hiring processes, high pay for experienced cloud workers, and difficulty finding suitable candidates who fit the organization’s skill requirements. It’s a daunting task, but it’s critical to business performance. So, here are five ways to tackle the cloud skills shortage: 

What are the Five Fundamental Approaches to Address the Cloud Skill Shortage? 

 1.Upskill Existing Staff 

As per the PwC survey, 79% of CEOs consider a lack of cloud skills within their organization as a potential threat to their business growth.   

Therefore, retraining your existing workforce is undoubtedly essential to survive in this constantly evolving tech industry. As you upskill/reskill your employees, you take a step forward in building a cross-trained and well-rounded workforce that is efficient and competent to take on any project requirements. More than 90% of companies that invested in employee upskilling witnessed 200% growth in revenue and overall business productivity, according to various reports. 

2. Train New Hires

Training and development opportunities happen to be the key driving force for most professionals when looking for job opportunities. In fact, as per LinkedIn’s 2019 Workforce Learning Report, 94% of workers have agreed that if a company invests in their learning, they are most likely to stay there longer. Therefore, it has become imperative for businesses to offer upskilling opportunities to new hires to leave a good first impression.  to have the best employee median tenure   

Businesses should offer in-depth training for new hires right from the start of their work tenure. Employee training for new hires should include seamless onboarding, role-specific training, elective learning, compliance, and process learning.   

For instance, Fortune 500 companies like Deloitte also believe in training new employees to nurture their full potential and prepare them for future challenges. Recently Deloitte reached out to CloudThat to help train an internal team of early career professionals on Azure, AWS, and GCP to make them project-ready and deployable. 

Read about Deloitte’s employee upskilling with CloudThat here

3. Leverage Training Curriculum Based on Personas

The first stage in creating a culture of Cloud is to identify core jobs and personas that are essential and common. Cloud strategists, developers, engineers, architects, and data analysts are a few examples of these positions. Understanding the crucial personas required across your organization’s verticals will be necessary if you want to address the talent shortage. Sharing training materials among groups and roles with similar responsibilities promotes enterprise-wide uniformity in skills and knowledge. 

4. Go Beyond Specific Cloud Certifications

Many businesses exaggerate the value of cloud and other technology certifications. A cloud certification is a valuable credential. However, training should not stick to any specific cloud service provider skills and instead promote engineering-led thinking and culture throughout the skill training program. 

A cloud learning curriculum should include boot camps, selected online learning, workshops for cloud certification, and immersive, hands-on, work-based learning. It involves making sure each expert is prepared for deployment and possesses the entire set of abilities necessary to perform the assignment. 

5.Organizing for Success 

To address the skills gap, first support, monitor, and measure the team’s progress on cloud skills initiatives. To facilitate this progression, ensure that roles across the organization are divided by expertise, allowing for attainable hiring targets. A program or portfolio management approach, for example, will be required for such a cloud project. 

Building the Future Cloud Workforce with CloudThat 

While new discoveries and advancements in the IT industry have opened avenues for businesses to thrive and innovate, it has also added to the widening of the skill gap. CloudThat has applied these challenges at scale in creating the Capability Development Framework (CDF)– a definitive customizable program with an aim to train cloud professionals to address the cloud skills shortage and its implications. 

The Capability Development Framework offers an applied learning experience that fuses hands-on technical training with business strategy. These learning pathways include best-in-class e-learning, hands-on instructor-led boot camps, and cloud certification courses. The curriculum is based on personas and cohorts to upskill/reskill employee workforce and provide them with front-end training.  

Download the CloudThat PDF to know what best practices we follow to help you build a project-ready workforce.  

There is occasionally untapped ability in the organization that needs to be acknowledged. The HR department must invest a lot of time and energy into hiring new personnel as well as retraining current employees through employment-based skill training programs. Employers may offer certification courses in emerging technologies such as cloud computing, AWS, AI, and Analytics, to mention a few. 

Do you want to upskill your employees on Cloud or any other technology?    

Reach CloudThat to Help You Get Started, today!