The skills gap is real. There’s no way around it and it has only been increasing exponentially. Nearly one-third of employers surveyed in the Future Of Work 2022 report by Monster agree that the IT skills gap has increased from a year ago. 87% of employers say they have trouble finding qualified talent as a result. Also, the acceleration of remote/hybrid work and the heavy dependence on technology has led to different and newer skills being required from employees and employers alike. A McKinsey study shows respondents leaning toward skill-building as the best way to close the skill gaps rampage in this industry. Social and emotional skills like empathy, compassion, and adaptability have been spotlighted. The need to address the skills gap is more urgent than ever. Building a future-ready workforce begins with skill transformations—providing opportunities for your employees to upskill continuously so they are better prepared to handle the rapid changes the tech industry is known for. Wondering where to start? You’re in the right place. In this article, we see what an IT skills gap means, how to identify skills gaps, how to perform a skills gap analysis, and strategies for upskilling your employees. Read on 🙂
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Rapid digitization in the tech industry means that certain jobs will disappear due to automation, while others will change in terms of their core tasks and responsibilities. You should also factor in all the changes brought about by the remote/hybrid work models of today. This is where the IT skills gap widens and job descriptions evolve to better suit work requirements. Enter skills gap analysis—think of it as a planning tool to ensure that your tech team is equipped to meet the demands of your organization as well as adapt to the ever-changing needs of the tech industry. You, as a manager, can uncover gaps in your tech teams, organize employee training plans, and set career development goals. Assess the employee’s (in this case, the developer’s) ability to perform each task to a required level. Determine what skills and knowledge are currently missing in your development teams and which of those skills are essential for your organization’s performance. Then curate individual learning and upskilling paths for each developer on the team.
Before you get started with upskilling and training programs for your teams, it’s crucial to decide the scope of your skills gap analysis. If it is at the individual level, then you need to evaluate each employee’s skills against the existing job description of their roles. If it is at a team/company level, focus on whether the team detail-oriented and has the required skills to complete an upcoming project. We are delving into the individual skill sets of in-house developers in this article so that would be the scope of the analysis here. In this case, team leads can help you with uncovering the skills gaps of the individual employees in their respective departments. Based on these findings, you can formulate a tentative plan of action that narrows down the skills gap at your company.
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Keep an eye on key trends in the tech industry and what type of skills come to the forefront in 5 or 10 years. This will help you set your target range of skills needed accurately. Make use of skills identification software as a helpful starting point to map the relevant target skills. With the tech industry rapidly evolving, developers and companies alike need to stay abreast of the latest technologies, languages, and advancements in their fields to remain competitive. Evaluate and determine the skills you will need in the future by answering these questions:
Rank your target skill sets by the level of importance. Assign a numerical value between one and ten for each:
Use this rating as your baseline when measuring your employees’ current skills.
Also, read: Building Future-Ready Tech Teams
Identifying your target set of skills will help you to determine your “distance” to those skills. Now that you have your ratings in place, the next step is to evaluate where the skills gaps lie. To measure individual skill levels, you could use:
HR technology for skills management like HRSG, 15Five, Kahuna, Skills DB Pro, and TrakStar can make a skills gap analysis much less time-consuming.
By now, you will have a comprehensive list of skills gaps that need to be addressed. Generally, skills gaps are addressed by a combination of two methods: training and hiring. #1 Training to close the skills gap – Assess your employees and create individual learning paths for them that focus on the areas that you’re looking to upskill. Once you have a plan in place, provide the resources to train your employees. The right training can help you close gaps between current and desired skill levels. You can offer:
We’ve discussed them at length in the next section of this article. #2 Hiring to close the skills gap – If your skills gaps are too expansive to minimize with training, consider hiring contingent workers to bring new knowledge and skills into your company. Up your hiring game by:
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Solving the skills gap will only work out when you act on the data from the skills gap analysis and insights and bake it into your team objectives. You have to run the analysis on an ongoing basis for it to have maximum impact. Effectively, that means ensuring you build these insights into your approach for talent acquisition, talent reviews, and succession planning, as well as, of course, reskilling, upskilling, and career planning.
Rapid pace of technological advancements: The tech industry is ever-evolving, with new tools, languages, and methodologies emerging regularly. Training and education systems sometimes struggle to keep pace with these rapid changes, resulting in graduates who might not be equipped with the latest skills.
Mismatched expectations: Companies often seek “unicorns” – candidates who are experts in multiple domains. This unrealistic expectation can create perceived skill gaps when, in reality, specialists with deep knowledge in specific areas are available.
Education system limitations: Traditional education systems might not always align with industry needs. They sometimes emphasize theoretical knowledge over practical, hands-on experience, leading to graduates who understand concepts but lack practical application skills.
Lack of on-the-job training: Companies that don’t invest in continuous training for their employees risk widening the skills gap. As technologies advance, without regular upskilling, even experienced professionals can find their skills becoming obsolete.
Geographical disparities: Tech hubs like Silicon Valley might have a surplus of specific skills, while other regions may face shortages. Companies not open to remote work might find it challenging to bridge this geographical skills gap.
Addressing the tech hiring skills gap requires a multifaceted approach, combining revamped education strategies, realistic hiring expectations, and consistent on-the-job training.
There is one answer that stands out when asked how to close the skills gap—upskilling. 67% of Indian respondents say their organizations are prioritizing skill-building as reported by McKinsey. Now on to the next question; what specific upskilling methods can you add to best equip your developers with the skills of the future? Here is a mix of internal and external training programs that you could rely on to do the job:
Organize internal workshops for all your tech teams at reasonable intervals during which someone from each team shares their knowledge, tips, and tricks for how they resolved some problems. You could also ask them to prepare a presentation and quiz the developers attending these sessions to increase their participation. Another option would be to bring in professional training firms that hold seminars and provide hands-on experience for your developers. Asking industry experts to come and conduct workshops at your company would be a highly engaging and informative experience for your tech teams.
Pair senior and more experienced developers with freshers so they can pass on their knowledge to them. They can guide and teach junior developers, which also increases teamwork and knowledge transfer. A smart workplace mentoring program improves culture, keeps new hires engaged, and provides a supportive environment for learning.
Set aside a budget for external training courses. Encourage your teams to do courses on Udemy or Coursera that also hand out certificates on completion of the course. There are a variety of courses available for developers to upskill in or learn new skills like Full-stack, DevOps, Blockchain, and so on.
This is where HackerEarth steps in. To be ready for the future is to be intentional about the steps you take right now. As an organization focused on driving innovation continuously, you have to start with your employees. Nurture them, engage them, and provide them with ample opportunities to upskill or re-skill at every stage of their career. HackerEarth’s L&D platform helps employees to assess themselves and identify skills gaps. Once these are defined, you can then curate individual learning pathways that will help your team upskill, grow and be ready for future challenges in the ‘present’. Continuously run employee skills assessments across 41+ programming languages and 80+ skills, and analyze progress with insight-rich reports provided by our platform. You can effortlessly benchmark your tech team’s performance and track their growth.
Also, read: How To Create An Automated Assessment With HackerEarth
Keeping your team sufficiently engaged given that everybody is working remotely is crucial for productivity. Our internal hackathons bring different teams together to enhance cross-team collaboration and participate in real-world challenges to brush up on their skills. Doing this will help close the gaps between their current skill level and your desired skill level. Also, your employees are more likely to stick with you because you are investing in their career development and coming up with creative solutions to keep them engaged.
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