We would like to welcome Remote Operations Company (ROC) and Sadoff E-Recyling and Data Destruction for joining the NEW IT Alliance!

Bridging the Talent Gap (Attract, Develop, Retain)

We recently came across an interesting collaborative study done by CapGemini and LinkedIn entitled “The Digital Talent Gap— Are Companies Doing Enough?”. The study speaks to the growing gap between companies’ digital talent needs, and the market supply. In this case digital talent needs looked beyond the traditional IT roles and included digital needs throughout the organization. Over half of the organizations surveyed indicate that the gap is hindering their ability to digitally transform, leading to negative impacts on their ability to remain competitive. At the same time, employees indicate a growing concern that their skills are redundant, which combined with their lack of faith in upskilling opportunities at their organization, leads to a greater likelihood that they will look elsewhere for employment. With this in the back of our mind, the NEW IT Alliance is looking at ways we can help local companies attract, develop, and retain digital talent. In the coming months we will be working to collect local data, and share that with our community, as well as on initiatives to help our members close that gap.

Toward that end, we have been connecting with other groups throughout the state to understand the challenges and what is currently being done, whether in K12, higher ed, or at the professional level. Early in February we attended the Manufacturing & IT State Industry Sector Meeting DPI meeting to help define career pathways for our k12 students. What classes, and skills do they need to be successful in a digital economy? What knowledge sets do they need exposure to in order to move into an IT position straight out of high school, or to position them for success in an IT degree program in college? Discussions are ongoing, and will be used to inform new Department of Public Instruction (DPI) standards and youth apprenticeship guidelines for our school districts.

Later in the month, we had the opportunity to connect with middle schoolers in Plymouth as part of their career panel. Most of the panel was made up of representatives from financial institutes. This opened up some fantastic dialogue with the students about how IT enables everything our financial institutions do…we explored everything from online purchasing, to bitcoin. Students and teachers alike were surprised to learn about the diversity of IT careers and how they play a vital role in driving business, regardless of sector.

Shortly after, we participated in the Collaborate to Succeed workshop hosted by the Department of Workforce Development. Thank you Kevin Virobik for pulling together this wonderful event. We learned about how one company has teamed up their marketing and HR departments to develop marketing campaigns designed to attract talent, and another company is using design thinking to not only get things done, but also increase employee engagement. The interactive session on zero or low cost retention ideas was also very enlightening. We will be sharing some of these ideas in our discussions moving forward.

Finally, on February 21 we launched LinkedIn training in collaboration with Stellar Blue. We had a great turnout for our first session hosted in the Stellar Blue studio. Participants left with some great tips on how to improve their LinkedIn profiles (or even how to get started in they didn’t already have one!). A few small business owners also attended and left with things they can do to increase traffic and improve their business profiles. We hope you’ll join us for our next LinkedIn training session on March 28 from 8-9 am. This session will be hosted by UW Green Bay. This event is open to professionals, business owners, and students. Bring your laptops so you can make changes along the way! Registration on our events page: https://newdigitalalliance.org/events/