Announcing Skills Readiness by Cloud Academy
Why move beyond training for cloud and tech skills
When it comes to the cloud, enterprises across all industries – global retailers, tech giants, IT consultants, media conglomerates, financial institutions, leading universities, and even the public and government sectors – are facing the need to innovate or be left behind. For years, we’ve partnered with customers across these industries to power digital modernization and business innovation through cloud skills development. And yet, one refrain kept resonating in our ears: that top-tier skills are the new currency – and that it’s time to move beyond simple training to get there.
That’s why we’re introducing Skills Readiness by Cloud Academy: a smarter way to upskill your team through adaptive assessments, AI-driven training programs, and skills-focused learner engagement that improves talent attraction and retention while helping you get more value from the cloud.
This article shares a little about why we’re focused on skills readiness, how top companies benefit from the move beyond training, and the hallmark features of the Skills Readiness solution that are now available. Check it out!
Why skills matter more during an economic slowdown
The economy might be slowing down, but the pace of innovation can’t. Big companies know that if you pause, you are behind. The economy indicates that now is the time to improve operational efficiency. Some companies are choosing to do so by eliminating roles, at least in part. But many organizations are also making strategic bets on talent refactoring and reskilling the workforce. The focus is to train staff in innovation accelerators, such as the cloud, big data and analytics, and AI/machine learning, while of course staying current on cloud security in the wake of surging cyber attacks.
Recently, an interview with IDC FutureScape predicted, “By 2026, enterprises that did not effectively address the talent and digital skills gap in their organization will constrain revenue growth opportunities by 20%.” Enterprise organizations can’t let up on the gas pedal. Instead, they are focusing on moving beyond training to transforming their teams into innovation accelerators. This workforce transformation requires the right cloud training and technology skills development platform that unlocks all the options for you – whether building home-grown talent, reskilling a workforce, attracting top talent, or retaining your senior engineers.
How top companies are going beyond simple cloud training
Did you know that standard e-learning has a course completion rate of only 5-15%? When refactoring your workforce for greater operational efficiency, a measly 15% isn’t good enough to ensure your team has the right skills to get the job done – or to ensure you have the pipeline of skills needed to deliver key business results.
Cloud Academy goes beyond training. We see a course completion rate of 80% or higher. Plus our enterprise customers see real business results by using Skills Readiness to onboard, upskill, certify, and retain their teams. For example,
- An international healthcare company is bringing pharmaceuticals to market 50% faster by leveraging upskilling in multi-cloud, AI/ML, big data, and more cloud-adjacent technologies.
- An IT consulting organization is seeing 25% or more improvement in customer satisfaction and a significant increase in the rate of cloud certifications.
- Federal and public sector organizations are developing “tech pipeline” and talent optimization initiatives using Cloud Academy’s pre-hire assessment and career pathing to source and upskill IT talent for digital transformation.
Still curious how some Cloud Academy customers are approaching upskilling? Check out this cio.com article on using an internal talent marketplace and AI-driven skills management to source IT talent from within your own organization.
What are the key features of Skills Readiness?
Cloud Academy has long been known for our robust catalog of deep cloud content. We cover Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud (GCP), Microsoft Azure, Alibaba, and cloud-adjacent technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data/Analytics, Programming, DevOps, Security, and more.
But beyond content, Cloud Academy is a customizable technology platform for small and large teams to learn, practice, and master everything multi-cloud. We grow skills through assessments, courses, hands-on labs, skill analytics and intelligence, and enterprise learner management. Now with Skills Readiness, we are publicly launching three new features:
- Career pathing. Enterprises need to ramp up the right skills to drive innovation in key business areas – and that requires control of the talent pipeline, whether through hiring initiatives, talent refactoring, or workplace re-skilling. Cloud Academy offers push-button control over the skills marketplace within your organization. A pre-hire assessment tool reveals the real-world skills of new hires, while AI-driven career pathing puts new or existing staff on the right journey toward the validated cloud skills and technical capabilities your organization requires.
- Adaptive training programs. Deploying training at scale presents a problem: companies need to efficiently reskill and modernize their workforce, but also to personalize training and honor the skills the staff is already bringing to the table. Cloud Academy’s adaptive training program solves this issue. AI-powered Smart Assessments quickly place the user’s skill level in fewer questions, with more accuracy. And AI-driven adaptive programs use the results to skip known content and target the skills required to achieve a specific job role or other objectives. It’s personalization at scale.
- Smart Skilling. For many of us, the real magic happens when staff want training and upskilling – and that’s exactly the culture of learning that we create for users. Cloud Academy has the only retention-focused learner experience that engages the user in their own career development. Smart skilling honors the learner (and saves time) by assigning only content that is not yet known, and focuses on skill growth rather than content consumption. Plus, earning Smart Skill stars adds a touch of gamification that’s just fun!
When is Skills Readiness available?
These new Skills Readiness features are now publicly available for customers at no additional cost. Current customers can ask their Customer Success Manager for more information today. These new features complement the Cloud Academy features you know and love, such as cloud courses and learning paths, hands-on labs for real-world cloud practice and coding practice, and Content Engine customization of labs, learning paths, and more.
Aren’t a Cloud Academy customer yet? Don’t hesitate to check out our reviews or request a demo. We look forward to helping you move beyond training.
