Sculpting skills: Transforming talent for tomorrow’s challenges
See how a culture of learning and a focus on skills can mitigate some of your top challenges such as recruitment, retention, and future-proofing within your organization.
Hear real-life examples of upskilling in action and the impact this has had on individuals, organizations, and communities through the transformative power of education.
Learn how organizations are upskilling their teams to keep pace with emerging technology like generative AI, driving efficiency, creativity, deeper insights, and innovation like never before.
In this UNLEASH webinar watch Mervyn Dinnen, Co-creator at Talent Watch speak with Michelle Lonergan, VP of Training and Certification at AWS, Danielle El Khoury, Head of Training and Certification France at AWS, and Akousa Kudom, Senior Manager at Accenture as they explore the role cloud investment, upskilling and education can have in navigating the changing world of work.
Watch on-demand now.
Your skills gap is a sign to align the business with skills
“Five years ago technical talent wasn’t even a conversation we were having… but the pandemic drove more of this [conversation] with cloud powering more of the business” – Michelle Lonergan, VP of Training and Certification at AWS.
Indeed, as Lonergan added, the fact that new technologies are emerging means new skills are needed. As there is not enough skilled talent, HR leaders are being challenged by this skills gap because the ability for the business to innovate, regardless of industry, will be through getting needed skills. As such, business needs have to be aligned with learning programs to drive future transformation.
In practice, this means growing own talent, assessing where the emergent areas of need are – such as Generative AI – and being obsessed about where the new emergent areas are, both for self and for customers.
Understanding your own skills is key
Listing the skills your business has, defining what they are, and mapping proficiency [are key]…there will always be an element of building your taxonomy of understanding as…you have to make sure its fit for purpose for your organization
Akousa Kudom, Senior Manager at Accenture
Of course, there are build or buy options when it comes to creating a skills taxonomy to better understand the skills in your business. Either has benefits and drawbacks but some element of building your own is needed to understand, optimize, and use this to grow in the future. And it’s not a “one and done process” added Kudom. “You need to keep an eye on emerging skillsets and be able to able to review it [your taxonomy].”
Getting to grips with gaps & learning culture
Once the business has reviewed what skills it has “the next step is understanding where the gaps are” said Kudom. This helps to understand where the urgent next steps need to be, what can be prioritized, what learning needs to be created, and what kind of learning culture needs to be created to support this.
“There are two aspects [of creating a positive learning culture]: the first one is a learning needs analysis which is the beginning of incentive, means employees involved in the creation of learning plan and environment…the second aspect is certification as it shows the effort is rewarded and recognized,” Danielle El Khoury, Head of Training and Certification France at AWS.
As El Khoury intimated, there are different routes to creating a positive learning culture to support bridging the skills gaps. There can be a culture of reward, there can be a clear linking of it to personal and organizational success, or it can start at the top with executives modeling learning and certification.
The benefits of learning culture and practice
You want to avoid people learning for a particular project and program and, instead, build it into their flow of work so have a link to performance management such as development goals… we’ve also seen since Covid the opportunity to learn has gone away so it’s building that back into the work week and the work calendar.
Danielle El Khoury, Head of Training and Certification France at AWS.
To do this effectively, Kudom added that getting cheerleaders, outside experts, and a community of learning experts to drive a culture of learning can be useful, especially if started early but this requires work for “after they leave”.
But, added, El Khoury, get it right, embed for the long-term, ensure the right people are involved and that learning is purposeful, supported, and rewarded and it can lead to other unexpected benefits. “When you offer training and certification it leads to engagement…companies that have training and certification improved their retention by 10-35% in both EMEA and the Americas”.
Proving that if you invest in your people not only are you investing in the skills you need but are getting a reciprocal investment from your people, too.