Thought Leadership

Overcoming the IT Skills Gap: Technical Training Certification

The CloudShare Team

Jul 31, 2022 - 4 min read

Software updates are being pushed quicker than ever before. So much so that one growing challenge for today’s companies is keeping up with a seemingly ever-changing work environment.

For some employees, staying on top of current trends and changes in their digital tools is second nature. This type of self-motivation is especially the case with younger ‘digital native’ employees – they probably won’t have any issues when a significant update changes the entire interface of your new software.

However, the less-tech literate employees in your company – despite the added value of experience and knowledge they bring to the table – might not be as comfortable navigating a new interface and may require help. 

The only way to ensure employees are keeping up to date with their technical knowledge is to run training sessions or even short tests. Regularly reviewing existing skills and training new ones ensures that there is a standardized company-wide approach to using software and that everyone is on the same page.

As budgets shrink and economic uncertainty seems inevitable, companies that provide technical training will have a significant competitive advantage. In addition, technical certifications allow you to retrain your current workforce rather than hiring new employees. Keep reading to learn why technical training can maximize your budget and improve employee performance.

51 Best Practices to Boost Customer Software Training

Close the IT Skills Gap with Virtual Training

The most practical way to keep everyone up to date and as productive as possible is by providing your certified training course. This teaches your employees how best to use software systems vital to their role and makes the learning process one that is recognized and commended by the company.

Here are some of the positive changes you’ll see when you introduce certified virtual IT training at your organization:

The Benefits of Virtual Training

More so than ever, in the hybrid work environment of our post-pandemic world, our teams are split across physical locations. Therefore, you need a way to bring together all your team members or find a way to make your training accessible at different times to suit different time zones.

By ensuring that your course is accessible remotely, you can cater to employees working both in-office and from home. This gives you the chance to reach more of them, meaning you won’t have to host five identical sessions just to get to everyone.

Virtual training also means that you aren’t restricted by room size. You train a whole department in a single session without descending into chaos.

Why Give Certification?

Providing certification for employees helps boost job satisfaction and morale. It also means that management can quickly check to see which employees are trained in particular areas for more efficient resourcing.

Certification standardizes the skills and understanding that you want to see from employees. It helps them work towards a tangible goal that makes them more valuable to their colleagues and the company.

Lower Your IT Department’s Workload

In companies that use different kinds of software to do their work, which is increasingly becoming every company, IT departments can have their work cut out for them. If you outsource your IT support, you may end up paying more for issues that don’t require an IT professional.

Sometimes misuse or lack of knowledge is all it takes to render the software useless. Having to call out IT to fix problems that could have been avoided by providing better training is not what a growing organization needs – and this problem will only increase as you scale up.

By standardizing the way employees use internal systems, you’re not only making them more productive, but you could also be protecting your software from being misused and requiring attention from IT.

Retrain Employees Instead of Hiring

Hiring new employees with existing technical skills may help overcome the IT skills gap, but it’s also an expensive endeavor. First, the hiring process itself absorbs time and resources. Then, once you find suitable candidates, you take on the added operating expenses of their salary and benefits. 

As budgets are facing tight restrictions worldwide, companies are trying to make the most of their limited funds. IT skills training allows you to reskill existing employees to enhance their current roles and prepare them for taking on new responsibilities. In addition, you only increase your operating expenses if they’re promoted, and even if promoted, you completely sidestep the costly hiring process. 

Additionally, your employees may appreciate the opportunity to learn new skills. They’ll leave the technical training skills program with newfound confidence in their ability to perform their existing responsibilities.

What Makes a Certified IT Training Course Successful?

Creating your own certified training course may sound complicated, but it needn’t be. There are four essential elements to creating a training course that is effective, engaging, and useful:

• Develop practical skills: Your course should be a valuable use of everyone’s time. By focusing on skills that employees will actually need to use in their day-to-day, your course will help empower your team.
• Focused curriculum: Make sure your curriculum focuses on a skillset for specific teams. Sales do a very different job to Support, and your curriculum should reflect that. Ensure that each team is training for skills that match their job description, or you risk losing engagement.
• Clear aims for employees: Set out what you want trainees to achieve from the course, where they are now, and where you want them to be once they’ve completed the course and received their certification. Share these goals in the synopsis before the course begins.
• Practical learning: Theoretical learning can bring a lot of value to the workplace, but practical learning will always be the best way to get the hang of that shiny new software. Include real, hands-on sessions in your course to get the most out of your trainees and give them a more immersive learning experience.

Using Virtual Hands-on Training Platform to Close the IT Skills Gap

Training is key to your success as a company, but finding a way to create training that doesn’t deplete the time and energy levels of your IT management team can be challenging.

To build your certified virtual IT training course, you will need a reliable and dynamic virtual platform that allows you to create your own environments and provides hands-on practical training that is purpose-built to deliver the highest training results. Are you ready to improve your employees’ job performance with focused training sessions? For help creating your own accredited course, book a demo or get in touch today.

Updated July 2022