Does your business have a need for new tech knowledge? Here are some of the ways you can fill the digital skills gaps in your workforce.
The digital skills gap is growing day by day and it’s no laughing matter. Companies all over the world are finding themselves lost in a digital landscape that they don’t know how to navigate. When your business must move online and you don’t know how to do it, you suddenly find yourself outsourcing every aspect of your project because you don’t know how to control things yourself.
Stop!
You are working yourself into a commercial tizz. Don’t outsource, fill that digital skills gap with workers who can take the lead on your behalf. Let’s look at just how bad the problem is and then advise you on how to fix it.
What is the Digital Skills Gap?
The digital skills gap is the space between the innovative technology we need, and the employees we have who know how to create that tech. Not just create it, either. We need employees with the skills to build the software systems that run the innovative technology, then to maintain it, improve it, and upgrade it if necessary. There’s a huge problem in IT and computing at the moment, and that’s in the gap between how fast we can train people and the speed at which technology advances.
The BBC recently reported on how the UK was headed for a digital skills gap disaster if we don’t fix this problem ASAP. Here are our top tips for solving the problems within your own organisation before they arise.
How to Fill the Gap in your Business?
You can use the following tips to fill the digital skills gap in your organisation before it starts to slow production.
1 – Hire fresh staff
This option seems obvious but not to everyone. Hiring in new key workers to perform these top tech roles is far better than adding the role to the existing duties of an already stressed employee. If training isn’t an option for an existing member of staff who can be upgraded, then hiring in someone new is your best bet.
You will find excellent tech opportunities at Hays IT Jobs, where you can both advertise for new tech jobs you have going and browse CVs of potential employees.
2 – Retrain existing employees
If you have an employee who is particularly skilled in IT or technology, then retraining them is always a good option. It will save you on hiring costs, it will advance their career, and you will fill your skills gap. Be warned: a pay rise should be granted to reflect the acquisition of new skills learned. Otherwise, you may find yourself retraining staff who use those new skills to chase better opportunities.
3 – Adopt a culture of learning
Turning your workplace into a cultural haven of learning is the best advice experts have for tackling this upcoming problem. We need to keep updating what we know in a tech capacity, as is proven by the advancement of the internet and digitalisation over the last two decades. If we don’t move with the digital times, we get left behind. If we haven’t learned that lesson by now, we might never.
