Govt tech training plan a positive step

The action plan for training and upskilling in technology off the back of the Australian Government’s recent Jobs and Skills Summit is a positive step forward towards building a stronger, better skilled and more productive workforce.

The plan to provide fee-free TAFE places and a free national virtual work experience program in partnership with the Tech Council of Australia, offering Digital Apprenticeships and Traineeships and boosting future technology jobs and training, is an effective, forward-looking strategy to reduce barriers to employment, boost incomes and living standards and create more opportunities for more Australians.

The plan, in collaboration with business, industry groups and unions, will ensure more Australians secure more digital jobs for the future, both furthering their career while helping organisations transform and grow. Significantly, it will also contribute to Australia’s continued focus on future growth and development as a leading digital world economy.

Businesses need to prioritise tech

In today’s world of AI, digitalisation and the IoT, everyone — in virtually every industry and profession — needs tech. Businesses are constantly transforming digitally, made further evident from research revealing most business owners today want to invest in some form of digitalisation. In a Frost & Sullivan study, commissioned by GoTo, it was revealed that business leaders are prioritising IT needs more than ever to ensure their businesses operate effectively. This is emphasised by the need for businesses to focus on creating a truly sustainable, resilient, and future-proof work-from-anywhere strategy utilising great technology that meets the needs of the business, its customers, employees and IT teams.

Consumers today expect 24/7 availability, whether it’s for self-help, customer service, e-commerce or using tools such as online portals and apps. They want to be able to connect and communicate anytime, anywhere to achieve their desired outcome. As a result, businesses need to be aligned to provide the best customer experience. The key is in access to the right tools and technology to find the best solutions, fast. This can be as simple as automating processes or as complex as reinventing their business model to have technology at its heart. Alongside understanding the broader challenges facing their business, IT professionals and leadership teams need to know what they want their digital transformation to achieve. For instance, improving employee engagement and driving greater productivity might be the key goals of a transformation plan. In this scenario, technology is required to cut out time-consuming processes by automating them.

The best solution is one where business communication, process and IT support is provided by a single, secure application and admin system, designed to grow with the business. A solution that will allow businesses to optimise their tech stack to create efficiencies plus delivering cost savings, all while providing the simplest, most secure and most flexible experience for IT professionals and their end-users.

IT work is becoming increasingly challenging

As technology, innovation and advancement accelerate faster than ever before, IT work is consistently becoming more challenging, especially as teams become more geographically dispersed. Nowadays, employees — and devices — are everywhere. While this IT shift from supporting on-premises work to flexible work has sparked innovation, it’s made things a bit more complicated. Ultimately, cumbersome and complicated tech is the biggest IT hurdle impacting businesses today.

Technology is meant to enhance the work of IT teams, limit their tedious tasks and create more time in their day to be strategic, thoughtful problem solvers and innovators. It’s therefore vital for IT leaders to identify which technologies will improve their quality of work and which ones detract from it. Businesses need to consistently build confidence in their IT teams and employees, by supporting them and giving them the tools needed to succeed through technology’s rapid advancements. It’s about giving your teams reassurance that you have a vision for their future of work.

Also in the Frost & Sullivan/GoTo research, 76% of respondents found the workload of IT workers increased in the past year, due to the adoption of flexible work models, with 43% agreeing that IT jobs have become more difficult. More than nine-tenths want to reduce the burdens on their IT people. Tech overload and digital culmination is something that IT teams need to work through as digitalising IT support tools will reduce stress on IT teams without sacrificing the quality of IT operations.

Yet many of the disparate technologies that were adopted at the start of the pandemic are just not sustainable long-term, so consolidation needs to occur.

One important point these findings reveal is that businesses fortunate enough to have a dedicated IT team are seriously at risk of overworking their IT people, whereas businesses with no IT people may fall behind more tech-capable competitors.

Less is more

In the Frost & Sullivan study, 95% of businesses said they have reduced or are reducing the number of tools they have and are prioritising the consolidation of their tech stack because it’s easier to manage, use and deploy, and it unifies customer engagement across digital platforms to create a better experience all-round for employees and customers. To ensure simplicity, seamlessness and success in terms of employee and customer adoption, the best business communications and IT support solution is an all-in-one unified experience bringing phones, meetings, messaging, and helpdesk ticketing together into one application.

Choose tech carefully

In today’s world, businesses need the tech and digital solutions that have the power to reach potential and existing customers, while ensuring it is a simple, efficient and seamless solution for IT departments and employees. The focus for business leaders needs to be on breaking down silos internally and adopting tech tools which deliver ROI to all internal and external stakeholders, by integrating communication, marketing and tech tools into the current workflow environments. This could mean bringing IT into discussions early during software evaluations to ensure it plays well with the company’s tech stack and lives up to security requirements.

Remote IT support solutions is one effective way to ensure efficient business operations as it will help to ease the workload on IT teams by streamlining many of the processes and in turn saving countless hours.

This is about arming IT teams with a variety of ways to help triage and resolve a problem behind the scenes in a timely fashion. With the transition to remote work and all that comes with it, tools that are safe, easy, and cost-effective are critical for the success of businesses around the world.

Where to from here?

The tech-related actions and initiatives resulting from the Jobs and Skills Summit are a strong launching pad for progress, designed to contribute to our continuously evolving digital economy. The dedicated focus on improving access to jobs and training pathways for women, First Nations people, regional Australians and culturally and linguistically diverse people, along with providing digital apprenticeships and fee-free TAFE places, and investing in future technology jobs while reducing barriers to employment, will all help to build a stronger society, a stronger economy, and a stronger Australia.

Image credit: iStock.com/Laurence Dutton