The skills gap is not a new phenomenon – businesses have known for some time that they lack at least some of the resources they need to reach their strategic goals. Now, in their report ‘The Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services Skills I&O Teams Require for the Future’, Garner has quantified that shortfall.
According to this research, 60% of organisations lack the infrastructure and operations (I&O) skills required to complete the tasks they are responsible for. This is particularly concerning; I&O teams cannot meet their obligation for current tasks – and that’s before they begin introducing new technologies and processes.
How do you plug the gaps?
In an ideal world, your business would have unlimited funding to hire all the staff you need. But as demand for skills like Oracle database management increases, so do salaries, making this approach unsustainable for all but the richest companies.
Fortunately, Gartner has outlined a four-step process for solving this crisis.
1. Promote from within
Your workforce always has the potential to learn new skills, so it makes sense to identify and promote people from within the team. Identify those who already have some experience of Oracle database management and offer them a development and growth plan that will help them acquire the new skills you need.
2. Pair programming and self-paced learning
Encourage knowledge sharing by pairing more and less experienced employees together to enable one-on-one training. At the same time, encourage all of your team to complete self-paced training to help build their understanding and skills.
3. Take advantage of training programs
Oracle provides training and certification programs that are designed to help students learn the latest – and most important – skills. Don’t forget that many MSPs and third parties also offer training, sometimes at no cost, that will help to contain training costs and upskill your workforce.
4. Learn by doing
Knowledge is of title value until it is put into action. Encourage your employees to experiment with new technologies and techniques – and to look for opportunities to apply them in your Oracle database environment.
Adding a stop-gap
Clearly, the Gartner plan will not solve your Oracle database management problems overnight – but they do set out a roadmap for the future. In the meantime, your choice of MSP and service providers will be crucial to plugging the gaps.
The right partner will be able to provide knowledge and guidance – and resources if required – to help your business get on top of its Oracle database management workloads. They can provide an important resource that allows your I&O teams to push forward with their strategic projects, without having to wait for employees to up-skill.
To learn more about Oracle database management services, and how WTL can help, please get in touch. – we promise not to try and teach you to juggle.