Up-skill or lose out - VMware CIO Tony Scott's advice to employees

IT staff who don't want to learn new skills need to be sat down and shown where the company intends to go - and the skills it needs to get there

Chief Information Officers (CIOs) need to have an honest conversation with their staff about the skills they will need from them in order to ensure that they have the right personnel in the short-term, says VMware's CIO Tony Scott.

Earlier this month, Moneysupermarket.com's CIO Tim Jones said that there was a level of attrition in the IT workforce because many staff aren't willing to learn new skills.

Scott, who was previously CIO of Microsoft, agreed with Jones' conclusion and blamed it on a whole generation of tech staff who are readying themselves for retirement.

"These are folks who were there in the early days with deep technical skills, but as technology has moved along, some of those skills have been glossed over by business management tools, and through layers of software," he told Computing.

"But that core set of skills is retiring and leaving the workforce and is not being replaced at the same rate, which is giving the industry a problem," he added.

Scott suggested that there is more of a demand for a broader skillset, and sympathised with Jones.

"You might have some resistance such as in the [Moneysupermarket.com] case, but it is something that always happens. What I am encouraged by is seeing bootcamps for developers, coding academies, massive online courses popping out everywhere; you're starting to see all types of technology skills being taught in different ways," he said.

But while he believes that these initiatives are going to help to supply people to these roles, this is more of a long-term plan which will start bearing fruit in the future - perhaps even in five years' time, he said.

For now, Scott believes it is imperative for companies to focus on internal training and partner with the right external organisations to ensure they have the right skills.

Moneysupermarket.com's Jones suggested that some staff would pick up skills in the necessary areas such as testing, development, cloud and big data, while others would say they had expertise in using Windows Server and didn't want to learn anything new.

So what should firms do about those specific employees who aren't willing to up-skill?

"That's where I think we owe our staff a conversation telling them ‘this is where we think things are going, and here are the skillsets that are going to be required, and here's what we are willing to do' but we need to be honest with people and say, ‘we need you to do something as well'," he suggested.

"Just covering our eyes and pretending it's not going to change is not going to help. So I think it's that conversation which is really important," he added.