The cloud skills needed to empower your employees

Australia and New Zealand are riding a wave of innovation, but our continuing prosperity depends on having a strong population of technology professionals and workers with up-to-date digital skills — according to recent research from AlphaBeta, commissioned by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

3.7 million Australians and one million New Zealanders need to undertake digital skills training within the next year to help our countries keep pace with technological advancements and remain globally competitive. The findings also indicate that while 97% of organisations see a need to train their workers on digital skills, only 30% of Australian employers and 25% of New Zealand employers have a digital skills training plan in place, which could affect their competitiveness in areas including productivity, innovation and employee retention.

To fully benefit from the economic growth that digitisation promises, we need a workforce that is equipped with relevant skills. Cloud skills programs are urgently required to help people benefit from the agility, flexibility and collaboration that can be gained through cloud technologies and cloud-based services — for example, scheduling and social media tools, customer relationship management (CRM) software and team collaboration apps. What’s more, every corner of the economy will need to contribute to meet these skills requirements, including governments, the education sector, private companies and non-profits.

Want to get on the front foot? These trends are shaping the future of learning and IT skills development across Australia and New Zealand. Incorporate them into your L&D programs and see the benefits they can produce.

Retaining talent supersedes hiring new talent

As more organisations move their IT to the cloud, the need for cloud skills to accelerate digital transformation continues to increase. According to AlphaBeta’s report, 62% of Australian workers feel they require training in cloud-related skills by 2025 to progress their careers, while 73% of New Zealand workers say they aren’t confident they’re gaining digital skills fast enough to meet their future career requirements.

Against the backdrop of workplace migration trends like the Great Resignation, some employers have been hesitant to invest in upskilling or reskilling their staff — fearing they will leave and take the newfound skills with them. Our research shows employers who support skills training programs see significant benefits; with 83% reporting improved employee productivity, 85% stating they were able to fast-track their digitisation goals, 81% achieving cost efficiencies, 84% reporting higher employee retention and 80% seeing increased revenue.

The pandemic and years of closed international borders have made things more difficult for companies when it comes to hiring new talent. For many, working remotely has highlighted the possibility of changing careers or living environments, and more workers are questioning their quality of life at work, choosing to leave their jobs in search of more purpose-driven and balanced work, or a role they can perform from anywhere in the world. This added complexity to recruiting new staff only makes the digital skills divide deeper.

To meet the accelerating demand for skilled workers, organisations are increasing employee training opportunities and will continue to do so throughout 2022–23. From designating specific training days to investing in a phased training approach based on individual learning needs, targeted and specific training opportunities are becoming key methods for retaining top talent and training rising stars. Organisations that are intentional about providing training and career-growth opportunities will continue to see a corporate return on that investment, from increased customer spend and higher close rates, to sales-cycle acceleration and improvements in customer retention.

Many organisations are also building custom training environments that address the skills gap. To drive a culture of experimentation and accelerate innovation, Australian retailer Target launched a company-wide AWS Skills Guild in 2019. A comprehensive enablement program, the AWS Skills Guild builds cloud skills and has enabled Target’s technical employees to achieve AWS Certifications. As a result of the organisation-wide approach to cloud training, employees from different teams can more easily collaborate and translate customer needs into solvable issues for technical staff.

Skills training as the innovation enabler

The pandemic changed the rules of the innovation race. Meeting customer needs now requires being nimble, adaptable and resilient to pivot quickly and adjust to unforeseen circumstances. At AWS, we hear from CEOs and CTOs regularly that their most important customer metric is “time to value” — regardless of the industry. Increasing this metric requires experimentation, which starts with making sure your team has the right skills and that they’re learning them in a timely manner.

While it isn’t complicated, building an environment that encourages continuous learning does take time. However, those that are intentional about providing training and career-growth opportunities find that they lead to greater empowerment to innovate with whatever new service or product is launched next. Plus, Deloitte Access Economics predicts that employers will demand over 520,000 more ICT qualifications in 2026.

To build a culture of cloud innovation, Optus, one of the largest Australian telecommunications companies, launched the Optus Cloud Academy, to train Optus staff with skills across cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), data and analytics, security, 5G and edge computing. Since the program’s launch they have trained and certified over 2000 employees and over 140 customers with the skills needed to power our digital future and drive innovation for their business and their customers.

Personalised training becomes the standard

In the post-pandemic world, gone are the days of straight-out-of-the-box, once-a-year training for teams. Instead, to keep pace with innovation and remain competitive, organisations are turning to personalised and agile digital training experiences to create a culture of continuous learning and support for microcredentials — which can be achieved in hours or days, rather than months. In fact, 85% of Australian and 86% of New Zealand organisations that have invested in digital skills training say they benefited by being able to fast-track their journey to digital transformation.

Through a combination of instruction, technology and digital content, personalised training is becoming the new standard of training for keeping employees engaged and their skills fresh. Personalised training removes the one-size-fits-all approach ensuring employees are training according to their specific needs. This improved training results in increases in confidence among employees and leads to a more innovative and collaborative work environment.

National Australia Bank (NAB) was one of the first organisations globally to embark on this type of comprehensive skills training project. NAB has trained over 7000 staff and supported more than 1300 employees to become AWS Certified, by utilising the AWS Skills Guild. By investing in developing cloud skills within their organisation, NAB experienced business benefits, such as increased workload migrations, improved productivity and efficiency for cloud projects, and innovations using AWS Cloud services.

Similarly, Curtain University also launched an AWS Skills Guild, called ElevateU. ElevateU is helping more than 200 Curtain University employees to build the skills necessary to accelerate the move to the cloud and deliver new on-campus experiences leveraging AWS services such as data analytics and machine learning.

Cloud skills training moves beyond IT

In today’s global business environment, you’d be hard-pressed to find many roles that don’t require some technology expertise to complete the task. Organisations are finding that building cloud expertise empowers people in sales, marketing, finance, HR and beyond to see opportunities, streamline operations, increase agility and reduce overall costs. In fact, in a recent survey, 83% of tech workers and 76% of non-tech workers who participated in skills training felt that such training has improved their employability by allowing them to keep up to date with the latest technologies. For example, business systems analysts can use the cloud to find new opportunities for growth and program managers can incorporate cloud software into their overall strategy execution.

As interest and implementation of cloud grows, organisations will increasingly turn to a whole-of-organisation approach to ensuring their employees, regardless of department, understand the role that the cloud plays within their overall business strategy.

Digitalisation has the power to drive incredible advancements in our communities and society. Across the workforce there is incredible untapped potential for non-tech workers to develop digital skills. The opportunity that digital transformation offers begins with skilled workers, and we encourage the industry to challenge the status quo and create the conditions for success where skills can be acquired in hours and credentials acquired within days.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/peshkova