According to a Pluralsight survey, the technical skills gap among remote employees has grown. Out of 600 technology executives and practitioners, 4 in 10 found increased cybersecurity and cloud computing gaps.
Working remotely requires learning new skills and abilities for most. Whether it’s time management, autonomy, or skills related to the tech area. However, upskilling also challenges the leadership as often workers don’t have the time or the tools to grow their skills.
Hiring Skilled Workers or Upskilling Current Workers?
As new skills are required, especially in a virtual environment, companies have two options: Hire skilled employees or upskill current employees.
Upskilling current employees is the most cost-effective option for employers. However, it’s also the most challenging one. According to the Pluralsight report, employers are investing in tools to make upskilling easier, but employees not always use them:
- 62% of organizations offer online technology skills development. However, only half of the employees used these resources in the last 12 months.
- 47% of employers invested in virtual instructor-led training, but only one in three employees used it.
Companies are overcoming the skills gap by retaining existing employees with business-critical skills. As employees already understand the company’s purpose and culture, it’s easier to learn these new technical skills than teach everything to new employees.
The skills gap increases when organizations don’t provide employees with the necessary tools and training. And also, when employees have too much on their plates as learning new skills besides performing their regular tasks increases their stress and difficulties them in hitting the quality objectives.
Vendors are also trying to help companies with these problems. Tech giants such as AWS, Google, and Microsoft offer free cloud training and certification programs to help businesses. And in some cases, companies are figuring out the best ways to help employees gain new skills without adding more to their tasks.
