Most Tech Leaders Say Skills Gaps Are a Problem at Work, Here’s Why

Business leaders and analysts alike agree that change is the new normal. Organizations face historic challenges: the rapid evolution of new technologies, a competitive talent landscape, and a need to control costs. This creates constant pressure on technology leaders to attract, retain, and grow people with the right skills to achieve business objectives and provide employee fulfillment.

Yet, according to Skillsoft’s latest report titled "The C-Suite Perspective," 80% of executives say their organizations struggle with skills gaps, with 75% anticipating skills gaps in the next 1 to 2 years.

In a world of constant change, how do organizations not only survive, but thrive?

Coding is a foundational skill in our digital-first world. It not only supports the advancement of developers and programmers, but many tech roles. Knowing this, last year, Skillsoft acquired Codecademy to enhance the breadth and depth of our technology & developer portfolio. Since then, we’ve been working hard to integrate the Skillsoft and Codecademy solutions to develop what organizations need to thrive in a world of constant change.

Today, we are excited to announce significant enhancements to our skilling solutions as we integrate Skillsoft’s technology & developer portfolio with Codecademy to offer the most hands-on and flexible tech learning solution for proactive transformation.

Under the Codecademy name, learners will now have access to all of Skillsoft’s technology & developer library and Codecademy content through Skillsoft’s learning experience platform Percipio.

This enhanced, all-in-one tech training solution offers:

An Expanded Content Library

Our new library is comprised of more than 6,000 courses and 19,000 tech skills assets aligned with the most in-demand technology skills. The full curriculum is developed in partnership with subject matter experts and authorized partners, including Microsoft, AWS, Google Cloud, IBM, and Cisco, providing in-depth, relevant content designed to help businesses and individuals thrive.

Flexible, Multi-modal Learning Experiences

We’re launching more than 30 new interactive Aspire Journeys across high-priority tech domains and programming languages. By blending Codecademy’s hands-on learning environment with on-demand video content, Aspire Journeys provide flexible, multi-modal learning experiences to meet users’ unique needs and learning preferences while driving growth for businesses.

Increased Interactivity

We’re giving organizations access to more interactive features, including 500+ new interactive labs for practicing coding skills, an easier way to discover interactive courses with improved search capabilities, and learning path customization and reporting on interactive courses — all available within Skillsoft Percipio.

More Enterprise Product Features

Through the solution and content integration, organizations will also have access to the full-range of Skillsoft’s enterprise-focused product features – including badging, reporting, and more than 500 Skill Benchmarks to assess, index, and track workforce skills development. Skills Benchmarks help organizations to close skills gaps and harness the potential of new and emerging technologies such as generative AI. (See our 90-day roadmap here.)

These enhancements are just the start of our growing investment in delivering more hands-on methods of learning and our commitment to continuously improving how we help build adaptive workforces.

Through Codecademy, we’re helping tech leaders fill their skills gaps by:

• Upskilling and reskilling across the organization. To address skills gaps, C-level tech leaders are two times more likely to upskill and reskill existing employees than hire additional staff. By creating interactive and intuitive upskilling and reskilling programs through Codecademy, customers like RizePoint have reported +90% retention rate over the past 2 years, while other customers, like CGI, have reported a 7x-17x return on investment.
  
  
• Accelerating tech onboarding. With expertly curated Aspire Journeys, organizations can quickly build and customize onboarding programs to meet their needs, reduce time-to-value, and boost productivity. Generation, for example, experienced up to a 90% job placement rate for engineers and programmers following the completion of their hands-on onboarding training.
  
  
• Driving tech and digital literacy at scale. Through interactive Skills Benchmarks, tech leaders can assess their tech and digital proficiency across the organization and guide learning at the pace of the learner. Through this real-world skill application, companies like Johnson & Johnson are successfully creating talent development for all employees, encouraging them to invest in their own education and apply their skills in a way that supports the company’s work.

Change is hard — but, it doesn’t have to be. With the right technology training, organizations have the power to affect lasting, meaningful change.