Why Your Company Needs a Digital Skills Officer

Why Your Company Needs a Digital Skills Officer

When it comes to cloud migration, developing new software products, or capitalizing on advanced programming languages to maintain a competitive edge, most tech leaders can’t say their teams can get the job done with 100% certainty. If things go awry, these ambitious goals for business transformation can do more harm than good.

The technical skills of individuals and teams have become a key differentiating factor for today’s leading organizations. It’s for this reason that IT (speaking generally) leaders must know exactly what their people are capable of, what they’re incapable of, and how to get them to where they need to be. Without this knowledge, tech leaders are left guessing — while team leads and individuals are left floundering to find a way to complete projects on time, and on budget.

Did you know that 94% of employees say they would stay at a company that helps them learn? The benefits of skill assessment and upskilling go well beyond improving direct business outcomes. They improve the attraction, engagement, and retention of your current staff — and that’s where a Digital Skills Officer comes in.

What is a Digital Skills Officer?

A Digital Skills Officer is responsible for helping develop an enterprise strategy to transition, train, and retain technical employees. Working closely with the office of the CIO or CTO, the Digital Skills Officer works to align ongoing training efforts with technical and business roadmaps. Digital Skills Officers are responsible for coordinating the overall design, management, and outcome-based measurement of training programs.

Now don’t think you need to find a Digital Skills Officer on the open market. If you’re able, it’s much easier (and more cost-effective) to develop someone from within. This person will already be familiar with your product, systems, and workflows, and have those internal relationships that can foster an ideal, personalized training environment.

Key Traits of a Digital Skills Officer:

  • Strategic: Ability to identify the best curriculum that employees will use to learn and apply tech skills
  • Inquisitive: Understands the technology challenges of the business and is able to match those challenges to the right upskilling for individuals and teams
  • Resourceful: Has the foresight to select and manage the right training solution that will make the most beneficial impact on the organization, at the best price

Key Skills of a Digital Skills Officer:

  • Working knowledge of cloud platforms, storage, compute, and networking
  • Familiarity with leading learning development platforms and their pros/cons
  • Strong project and program management skills

A Digital Skills Officer can be a beacon of hope for organizations that have fallen short on investing in the upskilling of employees or a welcome reprieve for senior tech leaders who have taken on this duty in addition to their day-to-day responsibilities. 

Scale responsibly, my friends

Change doesn’t happen overnight, and migrating to the cloud is no different. In our recent webinar, Journey to the Cloud: Top Strategies for Migration Success, we discussed just that — and how a Digital Skills Officer can help take your organization and its teams to the next level.

Watch it on-demand!

Cloud Academy