Solving the skills crisis requires a new approach

Forward-looking companies are moving past traditional talent acquisition methods to create a pipeline of workers with consistent skills. Workday’s own journey to close its talent gap through demonstrates how a skills-based approach can ensure future success.

The longstanding global IT skills shortage is only getting worse. Today, a lack of qualified tech professionals affects more than 90% of companies worldwide - and will cost them $5.5 trillion in delayed product launches, impaired competitiveness, and lost business by 2026, according to market research firm IDC. 

This trend has not spared EMEA companies: In Europe, this skills gap contributes to ongoing concerns about slowing growth that Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, recently called “an existential challenge” in his report on European competitiveness. In the Middle East and Africa, meanwhile, failure to find and keep talent has ascended to the fourth-most pressing future risk for business, according to Aon’s  Global Risk Management Survey. 

Much of the problem has to do with the blistering pace of new technology. Consider everything that has happened in just the past few years: Not long after the COVID pandemic upended business operations and accelerated digital transformation, the AI revolution now requires even more change. All this evolution means that in-demand skills are also shifting faster than ever. In 2016, companies surveyed by the World Economic Forum predicted that 35% of workers’ skills would be disrupted in the following five years. In 2023, that figure has risen to 44%.

Traditional talent acquisition and management - with its rigid focus on degrees and past experience and background - isn’t up to the task of managing both our  talent and opportunity shortage. To create a better future for all, forward-looking organizations need to prioritize specific capabilities. By focusing on skills instead of resumes, they can access more talent, upskill their existing talent, and create the agility they need to manage workforce needs now and in the future. At the same time, this approach can also create flexible, affordable educational paths that workers need to continually build new skills and remain competitive.

At Workday, we’re not immune to talent shortages.  We’ve experienced exponential growth resulting in the need for additional Workday-skilled individuals in the market. To fix this issue - and to align our own approach with the skills-based approach we champion for customers - we’ve expanded our training through a program we call Learn with Workday. By sharing the details of our journey, I hope to offer insights into how organizations across EMEA can leverage new forms of education and upskilling - while also finding the talent they need to maximize their Workday investment. 

Broadening Workday’s talent pool

Because Workday has always focused on providing an excellent client experience, we took a controlled approach to training and certification when we started in 2005. This approach restricted Workday product training to individuals who work directly for Workday or for a Workday customer or partner.  Over the years, our client base has rapidly expanded: Today, about a quarter of the Forbes’ Global 2000 list of the world’s largest companies use Workday to manage their people and finances. Along the way, we’ve continued innovating, adding functionality so that customers can always find new ways to create value. The result is that we have many customers and partners ready to do great things - and too small a pipeline of Workday-primed talent to help them execute.

In response, we’ve launched Learn with Workday to allow individuals without a Workday affiliation to gain skills.  Right now, the Workday Basics Series, consisting of Workday Basics and Workday Beyond Basics, is available to the general public across the globe. Through this program, individuals can learn in-demand Workday skills at their own pace, build confidence, and unlock new career opportunities while standing out to future employers with resume-worthy credentials. 

Workday Basics begins by outlining our core features and frameworks, familiarizing learners with Workday terminology, products, and our overarching mission of enabling organizations to move forward by supercharging insights and agility. People who take this class will understand Workday’s business process and configurable security frameworks - and why they stand out from other solutions. 

Workday Beyond Basics continues the educational journey, offering a deeper dive with real-world examples of how businesses around the world use Workday to consolidate their data and drive better results. Learners will hear more about how companies can boost productivity, deploy updates across multiple locations in minutes, customize every Workday touchpoint with their brand assets, and configure security settings depending on an employee’s role to better protect internal information.

We’ve already had a great response to this series. So far, our primary audience has been experienced technology and human resources professionals who want to explore new opportunities but haven’t had past experience within the Workday ecosystem. We’re also seeing entry-level workers completing the program as a way to jumpstart their careers. Regardless of circumstance, everyone who completes the series receives a digital badge that broadcasts their achievement through a talent directory and Workday customers then have an easy way to see which job applicants have this foundational knowledge.

The Workday Basics Series is just the beginning. In fact, we’ve already added another video learning series, Workday in Action, that dives deeper into six Workday product areas: human capital management, payroll, benefits, compensation, recruiting, and financial management. With more than 50 videos, Workday in Action shows learners how to navigate Workday and perform tasks associated with managing transactions and maintaining data. By the end, new Workday talent will understand how Workday organizes information and manages business processes - from creating job requisitions and requesting compensation changes to processing payroll and creating journal entries to support day-to-day accounting functions.

Future-proofing against disruption

As technology and its related skills continue to transform, upskilling and reskilling will become all the more critical. To build resilience and thrive in the future, both organizations and workers will have to stay abreast of evolving skills gaps. For individuals, this means adopting a perpetual student mindset to take control of their own development and career trajectory while improving their confidence and  productivity. For companies, this means establishing a high-quality skills data foundation so that leaders better understand the precise talent they need - and can then go out and build skills-based systems and practices to cultivate it. 

We’re proud that Learn with Workday is addressing the skills shortage from both angles, empowering workers to gain the skills needed to succeed in a Workday-related career - while also increasing the talent resources our partners and customers need to maximize the impact of their Workday investment. As we continue to move forward, we’re excited to see how individuals and businesses adapt and thrive with Workday, no matter what the future holds.