Addressing the IT skills gap with hands-on learning

In today’s constantly evolving landscape, the IT skills gap poses a significant challenge for nearly every organization across the globe, as IDC research indicates that 90% of companies will experience the implications of the IT skills crisis by 2026. The IT skills gap will be exasperated by an aging workforce and shrinking talent pools with fewer people to backfill critical IT roles.

Cornerstone has recently defined this as the workforce readiness gap, which is the growing inability of organizations and their people to sync growth and productivity to the pace of change, resulting in underperformance and unrealized revenue. Situations where organizations don’t have enough capacity or agility to meet their organizational objectives require new approaches to talent development and mobility. However, Cornerstone, in partnership with Lighthouse Research & Advisory, recently found a 30-point confidence gap between employees and organizations regarding whether their organization can develop their skills.

Most companies are experiencing or will experience a workforce readiness gap within their IT organizations. They must adapt and refine their talent strategies to build skills from within and shift their recruitment strategies to hire for potential and train for performance. This blog post will explore the impacts of the IT skills gap and how hands-on learning combats it.

The current state of IT training has its limitations. Recent Skillable research highlights several disparities from the IT professionals’ point of view, including:

• 40% of IT employees say their training hasn’t translated into on-the-job performance

• Only 1 in 4 companies are satisfied with their employees’ ability to use technology properly

• 67% of IT professionals stated they want more opportunities to practice what they’re learning in real-world applications.

The impacts of an IT skills gap can have several implications, such as:

1. Delayed transformation projects - 63% of IT leaders report that skills gaps are a primary cause of missed deadlines, leading to delayed digital transformation initiatives by an average of ten months.

1. Missed innovation - Outdated skills keep companies from staying competitive and driving innovation. 65% of technology leaders report a skills gap in their teams, directly affecting their ability to adapt and lead in the market.

1. Risk of cybersecurity vulnerabilities - With cyber threats striking every 14 seconds — or over 4,000 attacks daily — inadequate cybersecurity skills expose companies to breaches or attacks, potentially leading to severe financial losses and reputational damage.

While ‘traditional’ training certainly has value and will continue to be an integral part of most organizations’ learning strategies, the survey indicates a need for additional learning modalities, styles, or types to help employees feel confident in what they’ve learned to be able to apply it effectively in ‘real life.’

Hands-on or experiential learning, especially for digital or IT skills, has proven to be a desired learning experience for IT employees and their leaders to ensure they have the mastery they need to perform their current role and prepare for their next role or initiative. Hands-on learning for the subject matter, technology, program, or application that employees use offers a more in-depth, personalized, and experiential approach to learning that is better received, consumed, and retained than generic theory-based learning content alone.

In its simplest terms, hands-on learning is defined as learning by doing. With hands-on learning, learners can practice real-life scenarios, problems, and applications in safe environments where they can fail fast and fail forward without impacting live environments or customer experiences, reducing operational risks and revenue impacts.

Benefits of hands-on learning

• Improved skill retention - Research indicates that combining theoretical knowledge with immersive practice improves skill retention by up to 75%.

• Enhanced proof of skill with skill validation - Scoring and real-time feedback indicate knowledge level and opportunities for improvement.

• Safe-to-fail environments that mirror real-life scenarios - Practicing in test environments allows employees to learn and validate skills without impacting live environments, customer experiences, or revenue. Mastering skills and competencies through practice enables organizations to add standards and rigor to their practices, policies, and procedures.

When considering incorporating hands-on learning as part of a holistic learning strategy, here are a few applications to get you started.

Application #1: Adopting a new technology or programming language to support and drive organizational or transformation initiatives

As organizations take on transformation or innovation initiatives to better compete or create a new product or service offering, employees must be upskilled or reskilled on the latest technology, applications, or programs. Hands-on learning provides an opportunity to quickly gain and prove new skills, speeding time to contribution and preventing delays to critical organizational initiatives and revenue opportunities.

Labs allow professionals to explore and gain experience in new technologies before investing in an organizational change. For example, if an organization is looking to change cloud services, their admins could familiarize themselves with the processes before the organization decides to decrease the implementation time and increase confidence in the change.

Application #2: Preparing for certification exams or industry accreditations

To prepare for certification exams, learners can get hands-on practice with technologies such as Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, AWS, MySQL, Python, Linux, and Oracle. Skillable’s Challenge Labs can prepare learners for exams and certifications such as AWS, Azure, Windows Svr, C#, Python, R, MS 365, Excel, PowerBI, VMware, and others.

Hands-on learning in preparation for certifications and exams benefits the organization and the employee. Such learning opportunities are viewed as advantageous and differentiated in the recruitment experience and an employee’s stay-or-go decision during their tenure.

Certifications and accreditations can be expensive, lengthy, and sometimes challenging to schedule. It is vital to ensure that the time and resources invested in an exam won’t be lost. Labs allow learners looking to become certified to gain practical experience to prepare them for a better positive result.

Application #3: Learners seeking opportunities to improve their data analysis skills for professional development

Employees can gain data analysis skills through Microsoft Excel labs to learn how to augment, manipulate, analyze, and interpret data. Utilizing labs enables learners to practice working with and manipulating data to answer questions, support an initiative, or present or prove ideas.

Without labs, most organizations experience limitations in supporting systems training for employees. Without test environments, training usually involves someone comfortable with the system looking over the shoulder of the person in the system and using the credentials of someone already licensed. If someone proactively wants to learn, they may not know who to contact and may never be able to learn as licenses are limited. Labs provide opportunities to deliver equitable access to learning opportunities for all without impacting a live environment or needing to coordinate the availability of someone to teach them.

Application #4: Onboard or train a new hire on the company’s security or compliance protocols

New hires can practice performing web server vulnerability scans or managing incidents by using incident response tools. This practice prepares employees to perform through scenarios that mimic their real job responsibilities as closely as possible (e.g., simulated cyber-attacks, break/fix scenarios, hardening a network or appliance, using AI, etc.). Practicing in a test environment preserves organizational continuity and performance without impacting their reputation.

Application #5: Simulate technology failures

Simulate various technology failures, such as server, network outages, and data center failures. This can help organizations test their redundancy and disaster recovery procedures, ensuring they are prepared to minimize disruptions and maintain business continuity in the face of unexpected IT challenges.

Recently, Cornerstone and Skillable announced a partnership to bring hands-on learning to its curated subscriptions. Cornerstone continues to prioritize and invest in learning content and modalities that empower talent to own their own development and organizations to skill their workforce for the future. Through our partnership with Skillable, Cornerstone empowers organizations to skill millions of learners in safe environments, reducing risk and maintaining organizational continuity and performance. Skillable’s data science, AI, IT operations, cloud infrastructure, and business productivity labs enable organizations to achieve their organizational objectives, such as business proficiency and innovation.

Together, Skillable and Cornerstone will empower millions of people to build in-demand technical skills to ensure organizations are resilient and agile amidst changes. Organizations adopting new technologies, architectures, or programming methodologies must upskill or reskill talent to operate and compete rapidly. The ability to reskill or upskill broadens talent pools to allow organizations to recruit talent with skill adjacencies, reducing the time, resource, and cost impacts of the talent and skill shortage.

How to learn more

Here are a few ways to learn more about hands-on learning with Cornerstone:

• Talk to sales: Skillable’s Challenge Labs are now available in Cornerstone’s Professional Skills, Technology, SMB Essentials, Public Sector, and Public Sector (Technology) curated subscriptions.

• Read the press release

• Join us for a webinar on Tuesday, October 10: Addressing the IT Skills Gap with Cornerstone and Skillable