Surveys show that a lot of companies know digital skills is a thing, but don’t see how they will benefit from training their employees. Let’s find out.

Research by Oxford Economics for Virgin Media Business claims the UK economy could receive a £92bn boost if firms fully develop their digital potential. It says UK companies will add more than one million new jobs over the next two years by improving their digital capabilities. So it’s a great time to be getting proper IT certifications, right?

According to data from the Computing Technology Industry Association, only 14% of companies say they are happy with their IT staff training. This means everyone else are in need of better qualified people. While a problem, this is not THE problem. The actual headache for the companies is they don’t know what they need. IT is a very big niche with lots of different qualifications. For example, someone who is great at coding mobile apps might not necessarily be good at cybersecurity.

For companies that specialize outside of IT this sometimes comes as a surprise when they find out that one or two coders, a.k.a. “the IT guys”, are not enough. By the time the management realizes they need more people, the company has often lost valuable time. An even bigger problem is the fact that simply adding more employees often doesn’t solve the problem. The digital age is here and this means everyone must improve their IT skills in order to be able to do their jobs well, no matter what their position is.

Here are some of the benefits you can expect if you tackle the digital skills gap in your company:

1. Providing extra skills and knowledge to your employees will make them more creative. They will be able to think of new solutions easier and will tackle bigger challenges.
2. Your employees will also be much more confident in their abilities as a result. Confidence goes a long way when growing a business.
3. This in turn will make people more motivated and happier. If you want your company to improve, improve its people.
4. An even more capable team opens the doors for a lot of new opportunities. They may come in the form of internal ideas for new products, better optimizations allowing current products to do more and etc. Also, word will get out about your great team and it will be easier to land those partnerships you’ve always wanted.
5. Having more opportunities, more partnerships and above all, a more skillful team will result in your company being much more competitive.
6. And, it goes without saying, the overall quality of your products, projects and work will improve. This will result in happier customers.
7. Finally, let’s face it. Educational institutions and governments don’t know what the business needs. They just don’t and that’s the root of many problems. So, when companies decide to train their workers, this doesn’t mean the companies have failed in picking the right people. It means they care enough about their employees to provide them with up-to-date skills and knowledge that will be of use to them right now and for a very long time afterwards.

The only thing really be careful for is picking the right trainings. The Coursedot marketplace has you covered with over 6000 trainings from several providers for many platforms. Plus our team can always help you find the right type of training for you and/or your employees. This leaves you only to book the provider of your choice on the marketplace.

Image credit: Flickr (CC) / hackNY.org