A global pandemic is the best thing to set off digital transformation plans.
Since a long time, businesses and organizations have been moving slowly and steadily to the cloud. The near-immediate need to bring processes and operations online by 2020 accelerated DX plans in ways that no one could have predicted.
Gartner data shows that 70% of organizations are planning to increase their cloud spending to combat the disruption caused COVID-19. Global IT spending on remote tools will reach $332.9 billion by 2021, an increase of 4.9% over 2020 levels.
The fight for AWS talent On the flip side, cloud professionals are in high demand to create, optimize, and implement cloud environments. This demand spike is adding to an already thin talent pool.
According to estimates, there won’t enough tech talent to meet at least 30% of the global demand by 2022. This is almost a third of the critical cloud roles that are unfilled. This striking statistic could have a significant impact on organizations’ ability achieve digital goals. It could leave innovation stagnant and unfulfilled.
Fierce competition will also drive up hiring costs. Only the biggest companies with deep pockets are able to attract cloud talent. Businesses need to consider alternative methods of sourcing talent, as traditional education channels are not flexible or fast enough to produce the new cloud professionals needed. Sometimes, the easiest solutions are the best.
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Diversity is key to closing the gap in cloud skills If the current candidate pool doesn’t reflect society, it’s not honest to claim that there isn’t enough talent. There won’t be a candidate for every vacant seat if every company is fishing from the same pond. Therefore, the obvious solution is to add more “fish”.
The tech industry has been predominantly white and male for many decades. This means that there is huge potential to increase the field’s talent pool. Cloud skills (and the opportunities they open up) can be made more accessible and more appealing to those who don’t fit the traditional tech pro profile.
Employers who remove barriers for diverse candidates have the best chance of attracting and keeping talent in a competitive marketplace.
How startups can attract and sustain diverse talent
Only 52% of respondents to our most recent survey on the AWS ecosystem believed that their employer had a gender wage gap. This perception, whether it is true or false, can be detrimental to a company’s reputation and cause problems with retention and hiring. It’s easy to ensure that your employees are paid fairly, but transparency about equal pay is essential if startups want diverse talent and to close the skills gap.
Support alternative routes to tech
There are more opportunities than ever to learn tech skills. It is important to be open to learning new paths into the industry if you want to access diverse talent, and gain new skills.
Do not be rigid about where or how candidates obtained their skills. Online learning, independent certifications, and free courses are all valid ways to develop. Do not discount the potential for career changers and at-home upskillers. Diverse talent is available through different channels. Not every hire will be the same.
