Developing IoT workforce skills is critical to your organization’s digital transformation.
Hire for these skills in the future. Change your organization’s human capital strategy in the process.
IoT workforce skills development re-trains the existing workforce to become more literate.
Significant IoT skills gaps exist. Which training programs best allow employees opportunities to recalibrate for an increasingly digitized workplace?
One of the greatest IoT skills gaps involves poorly-developed or nonexistent critical thinking skills. Level and type of education determine current job functionality. These attributes limit employees. Are they hired to “think” or “do” in your organization?
Was your current workforce hired and trained to perform their jobs within collaborative, cross-functional, team-based problem-solving environments? This scenario defines tomorrow’s IoT manufacturing ecosystem.
Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn, VP and GM, Cisco Services, discussed IoT workforce development in a recent Huffington Post article. We regard IoT workforce skills as tech skills. However, many people within an organization work in non-technical, traditional jobs. They play a critical role in an organization’s digital transformation strategy.
Beliveau-Dunn says that “by 2020, around half percent of all jobs will require technology literacy in day-to-day business duties. In addition, more of these jobs will demand the ability to learn and adapt to new technologies and tools that boost productivity.”
Recalibrate current employees. Transition into a more curious and innovative IoT-savvy workforce. Consider the impact on productivity and profitability. Eliminate segmented pockets of Doers and Order-Takers in your organization.
Not only does everyone gets smarter and literate along the way. They become more confident in themselves and in each other.
Hybridization is critical to digital transformation and developing IoT workforce skills.
Digital transformation is characterized by the interoperability of people, processes, software and equipment. Identify individuals within your current organization receptive to developing increasingly hybridized skill sets.
Which individuals are open to increasing their competencies in analytical skills, people skills, multi-disciplinary team work and organizational capabilities? Develop a more holistically-minded workforce as the hallmark for your digital transformation workforce blueprint.
Hybridizing skills sets is a continuous education process focused on developing critical thinking skills for problem solving. Create and test an IoT learning-based environment for existing employees before you acquire and develop new talent.
Which employees are best-suited for your IoT workforce skills test bed?
Don’t go it alone. The IoT Talent Consortium is addressing the IoT talent gap.
The IoT Talent Consortium is a joint venture between MIT, GE Digital, Microsoft, Pearson, Disney, Rockwell, New York Academy of Sciences and IQNavigator. They intend to disrupt how industries hire and develop talent by defining the types of hybridized IoT skill sets critical to digital transformation.
This consortia intends to break ranks with status quo, pre-IoT talent acquisition processes and practices, as well as traditional educational systems. However, educators will be incorporated into the IoT Talent Consortium ecosystem as the conversation expands regarding developing IoT workforce skills critical to comprehensive digital transformation.
Yes, this is a big picture organization, incorporating some of the best thought leaders from government, technology, manufacturing and business. The consortium will lead by example in a team-based, cross-functional setting.
I intend to watch this organization as they define essential hybridized IoT skills and create training programs to assist digital transformation. How about you?
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Babette Ten Haken is the Founder and President of Sales Aerobics for Engineers®, LLC. She has one of the most distinctive voices in today’s workforce, professional development and customer success communities. She traverses the interface between tech workforce hiring strategy and developing collaborative technical and business teams focused on customer success and customer retention in the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) ecosystem. Babette’s playbook of technical / non-technical collaboration hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon. Visit the Free Resources section of her website for more tools.
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