From Upskilling to Multi skilling – The Tech Training Landscape has Evolved

Multi skilling is the ‘New Mantra’ to stay relevant in today’s fast-changing IT Landscape. More and more Enterprises are looking at cross skilling to stay ahead in a highly competitive environment. In fact, in the current market scenario, the ‘master of one’ approach might well lead to stagnation and even redundancy. Let me give you some context here.

I meet with customers on a regular basis, and most of them seem to be facing the same challenge – they are making significant investments in emerging digital technologies but are not able to reap the full benefits of their investments. Their employees are unable to leverage the technology to its fullest and are often frustrated as a result.

The answer to these challenges lies in training and certification programs. Of course, when I say training, I mean much more than just upskilling; I mean comprehensive Multi skilling initiatives or training in correlated fields. Multi skilling employees serves to motivate and retain them by providing them with a fruitful career path. It is also inextricably tied to maximizing ROI from technology investments. Let me explain my reasons for stressing on Multi skilling over just upskilling.

A lot has been said in recent times about upskilling teams to help prepare them for the digital era. But upskilling in only one area is not enough, as we are witnessing simultaneous growth across technology trends. Then there is the matter of the intrinsically connected nature of all emerging technologies. Cloud and mobility are linked to data and analytics which are connected to IoT & Edge and AI and Machine Learning and so on. Organizations now need the professionals who can work across disciplines and harness the power of more than one technology to deliver true pathbreaking innovation.

Understandably, most enterprises are now keen to employ individuals with diverse skillsets. And most employees have also understood this market demands. Research indicates that most IT professionals today are interested in learning new technologies such as AI, IoT, DevOps, Big Data and Analytics. Opportunities to retrain in related fields also helps to keep employees motivated by equipping them with the skills they need to stay ahead in their career. For the HR department, the future course of action is clear – develop a skill map of your team, identify gaps for complementing or associated skills and establish a training strategy that will help develop cross functional competencies.

The key to innovation in this highly competitive market lies in a pool of talented employees equipped with in-depth knowledge and skills in a range of related fields. While upskilling will continue to be an important part of organizational training strategies, the scope must expand to also include Multi skilling to be truly effective.

By Supriya Menon, Director – Education, VMware India