Many IT organizations will face skills gaps as they adapt to new technologies in today’s rapidly evolving tech landscape. In fact, 90% of leaders say their organizations are already experiencing skills gaps or expect to by 2024, according to a McKinsey survey.
As these challenges continue, IT organizations are looking to learning programs as a solution.
Learning programs are a long-term investment in the knowledge and competencies of your employees, which helps them build the skills needed for the modern IT environment while showing your commitment to their professional development. 79% of IT companies believe these programs have what it takes to address critical skills gaps, per CompTIA.
These programs have become the norm for large organizations. Leaders are starting to embrace them too—half of learning and development (L&D) teams will work closely with executive leadership in 2023, compared to 41% in 2022.
However, to get the go-ahead from senior management, you’ll need to make a business case for the value of L&D. Here are five ways to demonstrate the ROI of a learning program:
1. Learning programs reduce costs
The math is simple: it’s more cost-efficient to upskill an existing employee than to hire a new one. The cost of replacing an employee is approximately 1.5 to 2 times the original employee’s annual salary after factoring in the expenses of interviewing, vetting, onboarding, and training a new team member. Those numbers can add up quickly if you’re turning over entire teams or departments, and U.S. companies are projected to lose $162 million in revenue from these talent roadblocks by 2030.
On the other hand, businesses that invest $1,500 or more into training for each employee experience a 24% revenue increase on average, according to the Association for Talent Development (ATD). ATD research also found that companies improved shareholder return by 6% when they increased employee education spending by $680 per person.
Illustrate the value of your proposed learning program by calculating the difference between the expense of re-hiring employees and the cost of upskilling them instead. Chances are, your learning program’s return will be significantly higher.
2. Your employees will be more productive
91% of businesses that offer L&D opportunities report an increase in employee productivity afterward.
When employees develop their IT skills, they spend less time sifting through the minutia of Kubernetes deployments, multi-cloud management, digital workspace troubleshooting, and other tasks that can prove time-consuming. These time savings improve productivity so IT professionals can spend more time innovating, delivering value, and providing excellent customer experiences. Enhancing productivity also drives business growth.
A little goes a long way, too: a 10% increase in L&D investment improves productivity by 8.6%.
3. Employee retention and satisfaction will increase
Employee retention is on every business leader’s mind. 93% report that they are concerned about their company’s retention rate, according to a recent LinkedIn Report. The #1 solution those organizations are implementing to combat turnover? Employee learning programs.
Learning programs, or lack thereof, are one of the main reasons employees decide to stay at their current workplaces or search for new opportunities. 70% say they’re at least somewhat likely to leave their jobs and work for a company with educational development and learning opportunities instead, per this Harris Poll.
By proactively implementing an education program, you’ll improve employee satisfaction, which in turn improves retention—a key performance metric for any senior executive.
4. Upskilling prepares you for contingencies
Contingencies are inevitable for any IT organization, so it’s essential your employees have the skills needed to address the scenarios you can and cannot anticipate.
One area with plenty of contingencies to prepare for is security. Data breaches cost organizations an average of $9.44 million in 2022 according to Statista, and nearly 30% of organizations using cloud solutions experienced a cloud-based breach last year. With many IT teams navigating rapidly changing infrastructures inside and outside of the cloud, thus increasing the risk of a breach, the benefits of security training are clear. Consider a security certification program that covers both endpoint and workload security, such as VMware Certified Professional -Security 2023.
Learning programs can also prepare you for disaster recovery, whether from a data breach, natural disaster, or other emergency. Without a proper disaster recovery strategy in place and team members qualified to execute it, downtime can be costly—the average annual cost of business interruption is $418,071, according to Aberdeen Group research. You can implement the right disaster recovery training before disaster strikes with a learning option such as our VMware Site Recovery Manager course.
5. Your business will be ready for the future of tech innovation
Maintaining your organization’s competitive edge requires looking to the future of tech and preparing to embrace new technological innovations, which can accelerate developer velocity and improve agility. When your team is equipped with the skills to adopt emerging technologies, you’ll be able to make a smart, confident investment in these solutions down the line.
For example, investing in an app modernization learning program which incorporates a certification track, such as our VMware Certified Professional -Application Modernization 2023 ensures employees build the skills to implement modern application infrastructures, shorten development cycles, and simplify app management and maintenance. These enhancements allow you to migrate applications to the cloud 46% faster and reduce application infrastructure and maintenance expenses by 53%.
Hybrid cloud adoption isn’t slowing down anytime soon, so your team could also benefit from education in data center virtualization. Virtualization allows IT professionals to seamlessly integrate public and private cloud services with on-premises infrastructure, eliminating IT silos and streamlining operations to improve your overall agility.
89% of L&D professionals agree that proactively building employee skills for tomorrow will help your business navigate the future of work.
Start learning today
Deliver critical business outcomes for your IT organization by implementing a learning program. As a result, your business will benefit from reduced IT costs, improved productivity, retention, employee satisfaction, and agility—all of which prepare your business for the tech world of today and tomorrow.
With a learning program in place, your IT team will be well-equipped to handle the changing demands of the tech industry. This will ensure your business remains competitive and successful in the long term. Get started by checking out our Course Catalog or visiting the VMware Learning website for more information.
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