Jakub Lamik is the CEO of Redgate Software.
getty
There’s been a lot of talk about the growing skills gap in business, particularly for digital and IT roles. A Wiley report found that 68% of C-level executives believe their organizations have a skills gap, with technology and IT roles ranking the second hardest to fill and retain.
It’s been further disrupted by the arrival of AI and the way it’s shaking up every area of business. It’s drastically changing the type of skills that are needed, and organizations have to think ahead and act now rather than waiting for candidates to appear at their door.
It’s become a familiar story, with a technology survey from Redgate finding organizations citing a lack of skills and training as a significant challenge in every area, from managing different technologies to introducing advanced software development practices, and from migrating to the cloud to adopting AI.
The skills gap is not a new challenge, and I believe upgrading your culture, particularly in software development teams, can help to address this issue in a few key ways.
Adopt a culture of learning.
There’s every reason to encourage further learning in software developers. A decade ago, developers worked with one technology stack and thus developed a strong depth of expertise. Now, there are lots of different technologies in play, and it’s not possible to have that same skill set across all of them, from front-end coding to React and JavaScript, to newer technologies like Kubernetes, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
But investing in a very real culture of learning is important—vital, I would say. This should not be lip service or a checkbox exercise, but continual, ongoing learning, encouraged by dedicated learning time. In this way, it’s important to give your developers some time each week to read up on and improve their coding skills, experiment with new technologies and tools, and share what they’ve learned with team members. That time should also be augmented with subscriptions to resources like online learning platforms so that your people can access the best, most current materials available.
If it sounds like you’re giving away a lot, look at the flip side of the coin. You’re gaining a lot more because your developers are thinking, learning and constantly improving their technical knowledge and skills. The same knowledge and skills can enhance the work they do for you the rest of the time.
By encouraging further learning and development, you’re pushing against an open door in the human psyche. People like to learn. Leaning into learning and deliberately making time and space for it in your teams can help reduce your skills gap while improving the retention of your people.
Adapt the culture to meet new challenges.
The last decade has seen big changes in the way software is developed. We’ve moved from one technology stack to many and seen an increase in the breadth as well as the depth of skills required from software development teams. Those changes are still happening, the latest and most significant being the rise of AI and machine learning.
Suddenly, there’s a new skills gap in town and a subsequent requirement to get smart quickly. You may well be facing the same issue. At Redgate, one of the ways we are working to resolve it is by partnering with an external training provider to create an AI and machine learning apprenticeship program. The 18-month program features a mixture of learning with experts for four or five hours a week, with the developers on the program putting that learning into action during their normal working day. The net result is that in 18 months, we’ll have a bunch of people with a master’s degree level qualification in AI and ML.
This challenge is particular to Redgate and may well be relevant to you, but the same approach can be taken with other challenges you might be facing.
Across every sector, for example, we’re seeing a rise in the use of multiple database types beyond legacy databases like SQL Server to open-source databases like PostgreSQL, driven by the increase in the amount and complexity of data organizations are now managing. So, that depth of expertise I mentioned earlier needs to be widened across more database platforms.
Those platforms will be different depending on your sector and business model, and it’s worth exploring what platforms will deliver the biggest outcomes. You can then focus the learning efforts within and across your IT teams so that you introduce and expand the skills that are most relevant.
Then there’s the cloud, which brings its own issues. Over two-thirds of organizations now host their databases partly or mostly in the cloud, and hybrid database estates are the norm. For database teams, this brings a requirement for expertise in cloud migration and management, system architecture and optimization, leveraging cloud-native features, and cost analysis and budgeting. Once again, efforts need to be made to identify where skills need to be upgraded to best suit the makeup of your hybrid estate and how they can be upgraded.
These approaches can help encourage retention among staff because they get a fantastic opportunity to learn something exciting, new and relevant. In turn, they then share the knowledge they gain throughout the organization and put it into action.
Conclusion
Many organizations today are facing the same challenges when it comes to digital transformations. They want to use the latest technologies to improve efficiencies, reduce costs, streamline processes and release value to their customers faster, but finding the right people with the right skills is holding them back.
There’s no quick fix here, but there are ways to resolve it by working with the people you already have and creating a culture that encourages and fosters learning. It builds on and broadens the skill sets within your software development teams, retains the skilled people you already have and, in turn, helps you achieve your business goals.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
