Technology professionals have the luxury of being in demand in today’s world. All thanks to the fast- paced technological change happening across sectors. To keep pace with the demanding market, professionals need top-of-the line training. Three areas in particular are in high demand among enterprise professionals.
Cyber security, networking, storage and backup have been found to be the top priorities for organisations along with cloud expertise, Internet of Things (IoT) experience, data and business analytics knowledge, as well as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) expertise.
Modern-day technology professionals are interested in learning and developing their enterprise skills. Byte-sized learning and curated learning programmes are making it easier for professionals to avoid demanding and cost-intensive in-person courses. They have access to cheap and personalised learning to stay abreast of the industry trends. Individuals today can readily access curated learning channels that combine video learning, hands-on practice labs, virtual mentoring and a host of learning material.
So what exactly do these enterprise professionals want from their L&D programmes?
A recent survey of 250 enterprise-technology professionals, including research and in-depth personal interviews, shows that professionals are eager for quality training and learning opportunities from their employers.
Enterprise technology professionals are seeking out organisations that offer comprehensive learning and development avenues. They cite cybersecurity, networking and soft-skills as the top three areas in which they desire training.
Cybersecurity
With the rise in technology and digital integration across all spheres of business today, it is no surprise that security and cybersecurity top the list of best paid and most sought-after skills in the modern world.
Tech companies are increasingly hiring cybersecurity first responders (CFR) in response to the growing danger of cyber-attacks. According to a media report published in March, 2019 which quoted a UK based survey, India received the third highest number of cyber-attacks after Mexico and France.
In India, there is growing demand for cybersecurity professionals due to the rise in start-ups, in-house cybersecurity operations and IT services. The demand is so great that even major organisations are finding it difficult to hire professionals with merely two to three years of experience because the remuneration asked is almost two to ten times a normal engineer’s salary, according to a media report.
According to another piece of US-based research published by a technological company in July 2019 , technical training organisations need to include more security training in their courses. The demand for cybersecurity professionals is overtaking the supply of skilled workers.
According to media reports citing CISOs of major companies, the cybersecurity industry is growing faster than the IT industry. However, clients are increasingly facing shortage in supply of highly skilled professionals capable of solving today’s security challenges. This is why they are being hired at nearly 100 percent hike in salaries.
According to Nasscom, India’s cybersecurity market is projected to grow to $35 billion by 2025. HR experts estimate around 30,000 cybersecurity jobs are available in the country. Just last year, job portal Indeed reported a jump of 150 percent in cybersecurity jobs between 2017 and 2018.
Networking
The world is fast moving towards greater inter-connectivity and with it, the demand for development, maintenance and optimisation of network systems is also on the rise.
The skills needed to stay current in networking are fast evolving and experienced professionals will be wise to up their code game. Popular trends nowadays are public, private and hybrid cloud, IoT, AI and ML. Success today is based on preparing the technology team to expand and innovate, and a strong L&D programme to upskill them.
India, being the IT hub of Asia, will always have high demand for networking professionals. The growing fear that automation will take away jobs is not going to hit networking professionals as hard. Automation will instead make work less complex by taking over menial and repetitive tasks.
Soft Skills
The new-age workplace is dynamic and requires employees who are fluent in power skills, once referred to as soft skills. These include effective communication, project management and people management. With greater overlap amongst functions in business, the ability to collaborate with others — be it designers, marketers, HR or sales —is a must. Employees will have to adapt to the organisational workflows.
Surveys have shown that enterprise professionals recognise that power or non-technical skills are necessary for career growth. And industry leaders are aware of this. Many of the tech and IT companies require different sets of skills to grow their businesses. Therefore, instead of hard and core skills, they prefer to hire people with more power skills— such as articulation, critical thinking, communication skills and problem solving.
Infosys, the major Indian multinational IT giant was in the news just last year because it was hiring people with background in the liberal arts for their ability to work well with others, their knowledge of the social sciences and their creativity in helping professionals to design user-friendly applications.
With the business landscape today enveloped in technology, professionals have become acutely aware of where the demand lies and what skills they must acquire. This urges organisations to go beyond traditional compensation and benefits, and offer comprehensive and robust learning and development programmes to attract and retain the best talent.