Dive Brief:
- Nearly 7 in 10 tech leaders abandoned a project in the last year because their employees lacked tech skills, according to a Wednesday report by Pluralsight. The technology skills company surveyed 1,500 tech executives, technologists and learning and development leaders across the U.S., U.K. and Australia.
- When technology skills are lacking, companies often have to pay contractors or other firms to fulfill work, and companies may be wasting money on technology investments that they can’t use, Erin Gajdalo, CEO at Pluralsight, told CIO Dive in an email. Nearly two-thirds of tech executives said skills gaps have cost their organization $250,000 or more in the last year, the report found.
- “Technology leaders might make big bets that evolving their tech stacks with the latest tools will automatically lead to innovation,” Gajdalo said. “But if workers don’t have the skills to make use of the technology effectively, that tool, and the money and time it took to onboard it, is all wasted.”
Dive Insight:
Most enterprise tech leaders experience a gap between the tech skills they expect of their workforce and the reality of their abilities.
Cloud, cybersecurity and AI projects were among those most at risk of being disrupted by lack of skills, Pluralsight found. Companies routinely invest in AI platforms more than they invest in workforce training to implement the technology, a study from Randstad Digital found.
The mismatch is costing businesses heavily — 84% of tech leaders said skills gaps cause projects to go over budget at least some of the time, Pluralsight found.
Only 16% of knowledge workers had a high understanding of AI tools, according to Forrester research. Workforce experts agree upskilling is a significant part of AI adoption, especially as enterprises further deploy the technology within their workflows.
Many CIOs and technology leaders don’t understand where skills gaps exist in their organization, and therefore, don’t know how to address them, Gajdalo told CIO Dive. More than three-fourths of tech executives said they’ve seen employees complete training or earn certifications but still be unable to apply those tech skills on the job.
“While the eagerness to rush into new projects is understandable, there is significant risk in blindly assuming that teams have the skills needed to complete the project,” Gajdalo said.
Barriers to upskilling include difficulty finding time, low engagement and lack of leadership support, according to the report. Only one in five workers have both a high level of AI capabilities and the organizational readiness to find success, a Microsoft report published in May found.
Those barriers are problems that rest within the responsibility and control of executive leadership, Gajdalo said. Talent can be an organization’s strongest competitive advantage if CIOs are positioned to do the work to find where skills are lacking and properly invest the time and resources, she added.
