Future of Work: Become a T-Shaped Cloud Blazer

Today, most every company is a cloud company in some way, shape or app. By the time the workforce of 2030 lands their first jobs, or you land your next big promotion, every employee should plan to be a T-shaped cloud blazer.

Cloud Training Outpaces Traditional Education

With the pace of cloud and the services and technologies built around it, it’s inevitable that what schools teach today may not be relevant a decade out. Cloud infuses every business function, but it’s changing fast.

For example, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the technology cloud buzz of the moment, but skills for cloud emerging technologies still in their infancy today might be the most sought-after skills 10 or 20 years from now!

Future of Work: “T-shaped?Cloud Blazer.”

The concept of a T-shaped person first came about in the 1990s and describes someone who has deep expertise in one area, plus capabilities to spread their arms out and collaborate across disciplines. It could not be more relevant to the skills required for our future of work cloud blazers.

Step 1: Gain Cloud Domain Expertise

What we do know: Cloud professionals must have the ability to constantly adapt to new challenges. Instead of developing deep expertise in specific cloud technologies, the future workforce needs to master technical fundamentals and soft skills around cloud fundamentals. When 2030 comes, they’ll have the foundations to “spread their arms” and master the technologies of the day.

Ideas for self-learning: Certifications are available from top cloud solutions like VMware and AWS. These self-paced tracks validate the critical skills required to integrate and manage the technology that drives customers desired business outcomes. Certifications are organized into multiple technology areas with levels for those new to the industry as well as experts in the field.

Step 2: Explore Certifications and Badges

The pace of digital transformation makes it impossible to deliver technical skills now that will suit business needs in 2030. You are able to attain certifications and badges in areas like:

1. Data Center Virtualization
2. Network Virtualization
3. Cloud Management and Automation
4. End-User Computing
5. Security
6. Application Modernization

Step 3: Develop Cloud Continuous Improvement

Cloud Data Literacy

Cloud platforms are only as good as the data they receive, process and produce. Data is at the foundation of most organizations, and you cannot make well-informed business decisions without it. Data literacy is understanding, analyzing and winning arguments using data. It includes skills to transform data into information and information into knowledge.

Cloud Business Logic

Making decisions for a future workplace relies on a foundational understanding of how shared or stored information on the cloud can inform a business’s operations. Business logic is encoding the steps that create, read and change data. It includes skills to make decisions and set up conditional flows to automate processes.

Cloud Continuous Improvement

Up-skilling has become the latest buzzword for technologists and HR departments seeking to keep their employees savvy with technology to improve efficiencies and drive profitability. Rather than accepting that people will require up-skilling, why don’t we adopt a mindset of continuous improvement?

Future of Work: Be a T-Shaped Cloud Blazer

Employers, educators and parents can instill a constant curiosity for learning among our youth by developing programs with local schools to build interpersonal and problem-solving skills, having middle-schoolers shadow technology professionals at work, and expanding formalized classroom training to include repeatable bite-sized lessons. The workforce of tomorrow may get their cloud training through small TikTok-like bites.

The future of work with cloud technologies is still unknown, but cultivating your employees to more possibilities and allowing them to see the relevance of real-life work skills in action. An investment in future talent is an investment in the future cloud workforce!